It’s almost that time again. USA TODAY’s never-idle Idol reporter, Bill Keveney, has the scheduling scoop for Idol’s Season 6: air dates for the audition rounds (which start with a pair of two-hour episodes Jan. 16 and 17) and the "Hollywood" (or wherever in L.A. they actually winnow the auditiion winners) episodes (Feb. 6, 7, 13, 14). Bill also chatted with Idol nabobs Nigel Lythgoe — who promises some of the worst singers ever but swears the producers can tell the difference between sincerely deluded bad singers and performance artists trying to contrive their way onto the show by being deliberately awful — and Simon Cowell, who hated the auditioners in Seattle and says so in no uncertain terms, no doubt hoping to foment at least a regional controversy. On the other hand, Simon says he loves Randy, Paula and Ryan (although Lythgoe counters, "They always get on each other’s nerves. They never behave well."), modestly calls Idol’s judge team "the best judging panel of (any) show in the world," and wryly observes about the auditions, "There was a lot of sucking up going on –- which we encourage." Simon is clearly in mid-season form already.
Idol Chatter
BTW it will back in 71 days, not that I am counting or anything?
