Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Will this be the year American Idol breaks its Emmy jinx?

I sure hope not.

For those who missed it, Emmy nominations came out early this morning. For the ninth straight year, American Idol is nominated.

And despite its rank at the top of the TV ratings, Idol has yet to take home the Emmy.

Last year, “Top Chef” won the Emmy for Outstanding Reality-Competition Series. The seven years before that, the Emmy went to “The Amazing Race.”

Those shows are also nominated again this year, along with “So You Think You Can Dance,” “Project Runway” and “Dancing with the Stars.”

Idol has a second nomination: Ryan Seacrest as Outstanding Reality or Reality-Competition Host.  Other nominees in that category include Jeff Probst of “Survivor,” Cat Deeley of “So You Think You Can Dance,” Phil Koeghan of “The Amazing Race” and Tom Bergeron of “Dancing with the Stars.”

That award was created three years ago; Probst has won it every year.

Hey, Emmy voters could change it up and present that award to Ryan this year. I wouldn’t mind one bit. He’s been a steadying force on Idol since the show began.

But the show itself does not deserve an Emmy based on its Season 10 performance.

Sure, the show was revived in Season 10. Viewers didn’t abandon the Simon-Cowell-less Idol  in droves, as some had predicted.

Credit for that, though, rests with a diverse and interesting cast of finalists — finalists picked for the most part by viewers, not the show.

As for the show’s production:

* The Pia Toscano elimination show ranked as one of Idol’s all-time worst, and not because Pia was eliminated. On rock week, we were treated to Constantine Maroulis murdering “Unchained Melody,” hardly a rock song, and 63-year-old Iggy Pop prancing around shirtless and singing something. Nigel Lythgoe served up a couple of other stinkers along the way, but that show ranked as the season’s biggest embarrassment.

* The cast, again, came through with some memorable moments. Among my favorites were the farewell performances by James Durbin, Casey Abrams and Haley Reinhart. But there were way too many manufactured moments — the group hug for Jacob Lusk, the girls swarming the Idol stage for Scotty McCreery, Lauren Alaina’s embrace of her mother during the finale — that smacked of producer manipulation and made one wonder what’s authentic on this show and what’s … well, manufactured.

* The judges, who deserve credit for stimulating interest in the show early on, proved worthless once the live shows started. You thought the Randy-Ellen-Kara-Simon panel was too talky? This panel turned in the worst judging performance any Idol has ever had. It made me yearn for Kara DioGuardi at her most annoying. It made me yearn for Paula at her most incoherent. At least when she complimented a contestant’s appearance, you knew she didn’t think much of the performance. This panel LOVED everything. In fact, the worst Idol news of the summer is that both Randy and Steven Tyler will return for Season 11.

Idol? Emmy worthy in Season 10?

Far from it.