‘Idology’: Season Finale highs and lows, and suggestions for Season 13 via Rickey.org Credit: TVLine
TVLine’s resident American Idol expert, is back for the season finale of Idology alongside season 6 finalist Melinda D...
‘Idology’: Season Finale highs and lows, and suggestions for Season 13 via Rickey.org Credit: TVLine
TVLine’s resident American Idol expert, is back for the season finale of Idology alongside season 6 finalist Melinda Doolittle.
This week, Michael and Melinda discuss the highs and lows of the finale, and fire back against commenters who claim that Candice and Kree were a boring final two. In addition, the hosts discuss potential changes for season 13. It’s the last episode of Idology this season! So check it out below (via TVLine):
Thoughts:
I agree on the “honesty” part of their suggestions for season 13. I’m of the mind that the only thing they really need to do to revive the brand is to simply let the process unfold organically. Part of what drove so many viewers away this season was the fact that the producer-crafted narrative was obvious right from the start. The decision was made that a girl would win this season, and every effort was taken to ensure that this would be the outcome. And while The Season of the Girls makes for a nice little story, it only works if that story is an organic one. The production really did a disservice to the wealth of female talent this season by stacking the deck so high against the guys, because some viewers will now place an asterisk next to Candice Glover’s name in the Idol record book, implying that she only triumphed thanks to the producers storyboarding a female winner from the beginning. Of course, I’m not one of those people. And regardless, I don’t think there was any male that made it to Hollywood this season that could have prevented a female win anyway, all things considered. This is why I’m so disappointed that this season is being depicted, in several places around the web, as the season that needed to cheat to get a female winner, since I’m largely convinced it would have happened anyway. Sure, competitions like this always have a certain amount of manipulation, but it was taken to an entirely different level this season: between the bussing of the guys to the forthright commitment to making Amber Holcomb happen, this was the most manipulative the show has gotten since Randy said that round one was a tie between Scotty, Lauren and James. And when viewers can see that the fix is in, it can hardly be a surprise that they change the channel.
I also think another way to rejuvenate the franchise is to just let contestants be themselves. The best moments are when the fingerprints of the Idol production are nowhere to be seen, and contestants are simply allowed to do what they naturally would do as artists. Phillip Phillips had to fight to get the show to clear Damien Rice’s “Volcano” for Songs You Wish You Wrote last season, while Melinda Doolittle herself has detailed how the Idol band basically ignored her arrangement requests. As she explained in an episode of Idology a few weeks back, “Even though I would say ‘This is not exactly what I asked for,’ it was what they wanted to play, and so it’s what they played,”
While it’s a different band with a different leader now, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the ideology is the same, particularly when you have guys like Lazaro talking about how the band introduced a key change in “Close to You” five minutes before he was to go onstage (whether you believe it or not is up to you, but I’m inclined to buy it, if only because it was such a jarring key change and Lazaro genuinely didn’t seem prepared for it in the least). Nothing is gained by forcing contestants into a very narrow mold, especially when you’re depending on these contestants to sell records and concert tickets when the competition is over (never mind counting on them to draw ratings). Two of Idol’s best seasons (7 and 8) largely featured contestants who were given the freedom to be themselves. There was
