Troubled Hollywood

I have to give it up to American Idol this season for listening to us and giving us what we want. They made changes in the past few years that were really nothing more than what Fox figured would get them better ratings, by giving them two-hour-long shows as often as possible, and giving us lots of bad auditions, to the point of seeing only a few each audition show of who got through, followed by Hollywood week jammed into just one day, and the rest of the season with performance shows.

This isn’t to say that they probably aren’t worried about ratings, but they aren’t manipulating the show to get that and sacrificing its purpose in the meantime. We only had three weeks of auditions this time, and saw more good than bad auditions, and now we have Hollywood week stretched back out into two weeks. After, we’ll go back to having the old style of semi-finals with two voted in from each group, and wild cards then added in as well, of the other people that were good enough to make it, but didn’t for one reason or another.

One of the promises made was that they would be giving us a chance to get to know the contestants again, instead of just thrusting them into performances. It gives us a chance to bond with these artists, so that we know what they’re about instead of just seeing them audition, then a moment or two from Hollywood. Read more »