10 September 2009

Noooo, Not Ellen DeGeneres!!!

Don't get me wrong. I love this woman a lot. She's one of the best persons to watch on TV. But whoever it was who thought to bring Ellen DeGeneres to replace Paula Abdul on American Idol is only after two things --- buzz and ratings. But yeah, why should that surprise me? It's the oldest marketing trick in the book in this industry.

Is Ellen musical? Yes. Is she part of the music industry? No. Is she a qualified judge? Hardly. Do those things matter? Not really. Paula was one of three and she stayed on for eight seasons.

Is she opinionated? Yes. Is she coherent? Not especially. It's not easy to get her jokes sometimes, she jumbles her punchlines. Have you been watching her show? It's cute when she does that....on her show. Will you find this cute when she's doing this on Idol?

Will what she say be interesting as judge? Will it help the contestants? Based on her guest judge appearance in last Summer's "So You Think You Can Dance" Ellen was mostly comic relief and did nothing to help the dancers. She was pretty useless, I'm sorry. Not to jump the gun and assume she will be this way on American Idol....but then again, what if she will be (just the comic relief)?

I don't mean she wouldn't take her new role seriously because we haven't seen her do this yet. Though right now, I am only sure I will love that she will be on Idol because she will be able to deliver the entertainment value.

But call me the Doubting Thomas, I am not sure how effective a judge she will be, to do this for 10-12 weeks no less.

And... I smell an overdose of Ellen in the long run (she's going to be on 5x daily, and 2x nightly now). Will Ellen lose her charm now that she's judging the most watched TV program on the face of the earth? (Hey, someone's bound to end up hating her guts no matter how likeable she is!)

I honestly hoped they picked somebody like Victoria Beckham for two reasons --- if she does well judging and is the biggest surprise of the season, then I would love this show back and sing my praises. But if she does poorly? Then put it this way: it's easier to hate the guts and viewer-critique someone like Posh, than hate someone like Dory.