American Idol

Idol is a shamefully addictive cross between Ed McMahon's old "Star Search" and Chuck Barris' hoary, whore-y "The $1.98 Beauty Show."

There you have the magic of Idol: British headmasterly discipline running smack into the preternatural sense of self-esteem--often inversely proportional to talent--that Americans have hardwired into them from the womb. You may wince at Cowell's barbs, but you also welcome them when Abdul or Jackson offers a wimpy "Good job" to a singer who has scraped the fingernails of her ambition down the chalkboard of her limited ability.

'American Idol' is the Mae West of TV talent shows: when it's good, it's very good, but when it's bad, it's better. [24 Jun 2002]

American Idol... has been excellent Tuesday-Wednesday entertainment this summer. ... The individual efforts at star turns have been genuinely exciting. ... For our part, American Idol fans, who watch chiefly to see if we can pick a winner, have become accustomed to the show's tackiness, its repetitions, and its garish product placement.

As with all reality shows, the pleasure for viewers is the cruel one of rubbernecking a disaster.

The Tuesday programs are involving for the musical numbers, but the Wednesday installments resort to the lamest tricks to drag out the announcement of who is gone. The contestants' awkward group performances add little to the process and play like the worst of Las Vegas. [4 Sep 2002]

Offering prefab middle-of-the-road stardom, "American Idol" is entertaining, but not for the reasons its producers like to pretend. The open secret that the show's creators and its fans choose to ignore is that the music and arrangements are trite, full of wannabe Whitney Houston and Stevie Wonder wails. Originality is a losing strategy. But the series does have a stroke of commercial genius, as it shrewdly combines elements from a smattering of other series into one big marketable soup. It's "Survivor" with a soundtrack.

So much about the Fox series is unseemly, and I don't just mean the commercial-to-show ratio and the sponsor plugs, which have been downright obscene. "American Idol," a new hybrid of reality TV and beauty pageantry, represents some of the crudest aspects of both network TV and the pop-music industry. ... And yet, and yet. "American Idol" remains addictive TV. [4 Sep 2002]

"American Idol" boasts two new wrinkles. First, the performances are so tightly edited that each singer gets barely a minute onstage. ... The second innovation: The contest is rigged. [21 Jun 2002]

An old-fashioned talent show with the new-fashioned feature of value-added public humiliation, 'American Idol' is a 'Gong Show' the Marquis de Sade would love.

The biggest misconception about "American Idol" is that industry pros would actually spend 90 seconds listening to these mostly drab performers--as the judges do on the hit TV show that mixes the Cinderella aspects of "Star Search" with the humiliation of "Survivor." ... The fact that these six are supposed to be the best of 10,000 original candidates is sobering. Then again, the show--with its glitz and inbred dumbness--is hardly designed to find the next Kurt Cobain or Ryan Adams.

It is the show that just won't go away. ... It's a seedier version of Star Search or Ted Mack's Amateur Hour. Those were corny showcases for fledgling talent. American Idol is a study in nastiness. [27 Aug 2002]