The sea of strike-spawned reality offerings is filled with ‘90s remakes, lovelorn farmers and even a show called “Baby Borrowers,” that may or may not be about kidnapping. Thank god for the wonderfully consistent “American Idol”—returning for its seventh season with a two-night, four-hour premiere event, Jan. 15 and 16 at 8 p.m./7c on Fox. Our lonely DVRs have never been better prepared for the millions of original “Idol” hours to come…
Judge Simon Cowell may have a reputation for being the king of mean, but everyone knows he’s just speaking the truth. And behind that brutal honesty beats the heart of a kitten—a sarcastic, tight shirt-wearing British kitten. Cowell opened up about “Hey Paula,” judge infighting, Sanjaya, “Dancing with the Stars” and what we can expect from the newest crop of potential idols.
So we’re curious if you watched “Hey Paula”…is that really what she’s like, or is she playing for the cameras?
I saw I think 30 minutes of the first episode and to answer your question, yes, a lot of it is the Paula I know. Which is why I stopped watching—I have it in real life so I don’t need to watch it on TV again.
Does that mean the crying jags and assistants trying to calm her down are all real?
The crying, yes I’ve seen a lot of that, but I saw that within the first hour of working with her. She’s an emotional girl. But what I saw, I thought it was very exaggerated in the edit because she doesn’t talk to her assistants like that generally.
”Idol” producer Nigel Lythgoe recently described your relations as “Childish, pitiful. The same as every year.” What do you think about that?
Well let me return the compliment to Nigel, because that’s what I would describe our relationship with him: childish and pitiful. I’m kidding there, by the way. In other words, it’s certainly not pitiful. I don’t think it’s childish. It can be a little bit acrimonious at times, but that’s what happens when you’ve worked together for seven years. You get on each other’s nerves, you disagree with each other. But we’re not going to sit there like three robots and be told what to do.
So what can you tell us about the level of talent this year?
I think personally it’s one of the strongest years we’ve had in a long, long time. It is younger, I think the talent is more current, they’re more interesting as people. So I go into this season a lot more optimistic than I went in certainly last year. I mean, Paula and Randy went on record last year saying, “The bar has been raised,” and all that nonsense and, “This is going to be one of the best years.” I didn’t go along with that. I didn’t believe it. But I will go on record this year in saying it is one of the strongest lineups we’ve had.
Sanjaya seemed to be the biggest deal last season, and after a while, you just held your tongue. Do you think the franchise was hurt a little bit by his staying on for so long?
I don’t think it did any harm at all because he didn’t win. There was a point—I’ll be honest with you—halfway through when it did occur to me, after some absolutely horrific performances and the public kept them in, that we actually might have a problem. I know at the time that this “vote for the worst” site and Howard Stern genuinely believed that they had a huge influence over the show, which I don’t think they did in hindsight. Now I look back and I laugh about it, to be honest with you. And I think he was harmless. He had a run, he had some fun, he was actually a very nice kid, so I don’t think any damage was done at all.
As a television phenomenon, do you think “American dol” has peaked or do you think there’s still room for growth?
You know, my hunch is that what I would call some of these “super brands” possibly could get stronger over the next few years because they’ve got a lot of following and they’ve got big budgets. You look at shows like “American Idol,” “Dancing with the Stars”—which I would consider to be two of the super brands—these shows, in my mind, seem to be getting better over the years. I mean, certainly the last season of “Dancing with the Stars” I thought was phenomenal. It was a brilliantly produced show…very, very well cast. So I think that show will get stronger when it comes back this year and I think the same for “American Idol.” It’s a very, very well-made show, [and] it’s got a better cast this year.
The two-night, four-hour season premiere of “American Idol” airs Tuesday, Jan. 15 and Wednesday, Jan. 16 at 8 p.m./7c on Fox.
