American Idol

The instant chemistry among the three judges was so right, they couldn't have created it in a lab. Everything that made us fall in love with Idol in the first place was back.

“I Kissed a Girl” pop star Katy Perry, country superstar Luke Bryan and music legend Lionel Richie form a panel that doesn’t so much practice tough love as dole out “Chicken Soup for the Soul” critiques.

'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]

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

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.

The freak-show rounds, a staple of Idol’s early weeks, have been reduced to a couple of montages and the random weirdo.... Of the three judges, Connick is the harshest, a Simon Cowell without the snark or the malice.

[A] blockheaded version of a high school talent show. ... What could be more stultifying than the way this non-celebrity sing-off crams product placement into the viewer's field of vision, everything from the Big Gulp-size Coca-Cola cups on the judges' table to the contestants being forced to enact a troglodytic skit while inside a Ford Focus? [26 Aug 2002]