I've mentioned before that I normally don't write about American Idol until it gets to the voting stage. This year, I didn't follow my instincts but thought I'd start at the beginning. Okay — so I tried, but I should have listened to myself instead.
Bearing in mind the fact that my motivator is the music, I changed my game plan. Not wanting to become all wrapped up in the politics and policies of the show, take away the 'he's so mean, she's high on something' blah, blah, blah of it all and I was basically left with my own list of early contenders for the crown, amounting to only a couple each week. Realistically, most of those that hit my radar are not likely make it through to the end of this coming "Hollywood Week" anyway.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy watching the first part of the season every year — the good, the bad, and the tone-deaf. It's a good warm-up for things to come and to see if anyone does catch my attention. But it's just not the be all, end all that the rest of the shows are, it's a totally different head. And that's not by happenstance according to A.I.'s executive producer Nigel Lythgoe, as I found out a few days ago.
Last week, I was privileged to be invited to a Q & A teleconference with Mr. Lythgoe. You know I had to attend, right? It was pretty heady stuff to be there, with the likes of more well-known media like InTouch, USA Today, People and MTV News. Yet many of the questions were geared towards either getting insider info or feeding on the controversies that seem to follow the show each season. It was the bits and pieces when Nigel talked about the show itself that I thought the most appealing.
For example, as executive producer he looks at each season as having several distinct mini-type series; the auditions as one, which is presented differently than the paring down from those arriving for Hollywood Week to the top twenty four singers. Finally, as Nigel put it, "then going into the top 12 is yet, again, another series that is where the star is born." Each of these sections have their own set of rules and boundaries that he and his team use to put the show together. Continuing on, he stated "So I don’t ever really put the fun, the silliness, the cheekiness, of the audition process in with the top 12s."
He also had the chance to talk about the show this week, Hollywood Week, why it's set up the way it is and what its goal is. InTouch Weekly gave him the chance to address all that when they asked him whether there were set curfews for the contestants during this time. To quote Nigel directly, "To be frank, I don’t know. The curfew isn’t in place when they are doing their groups because we like to get them exhausted.
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