Idol Chatter & Voice Views

The Top 21 on American Idol will be featured in episodes airing tonight and next Sunday.

First, let’s address what we don’t know.

There’s no news yet on exactly how American Idol will proceed with Season 18 now that they’ve reached the Top 20 stage and live tapings have been postponed indefinitely because of the coronavirus crisis. All we know is that the show does plan to proceed.

There’s also no news yet on whether Lauren Mascitti or Grace Leer nabbed the last spot in that Top 20, though fan voting ended Tuesday morning.

What we do know, is that Idol will air two time-buying “This is Me” episodes this Sunday and next focusing on the Top 20 and providing updates for “some former fan-favorite contestants.”

If Idol does this well, the episodes could be well worth watching. A chance to level the playing field.

It’s no secret that Idol loves a good backstory. And perhaps becomes too enamored with them at times.

That means some members of the Top 20 — James Dillon, Just Sam, for instance — have gotten a lot more screen time to this point than others. Like, for instance, Faith Becnel or Lauren Spencer-Smith.

Idol would be wise to commit the same amount of screen time to all members of the Top 21 over these next two episodes. And to focus less on personal stories and more on their musical talent.

I was not a fan of the format for the Final Judgment shows. Too many performances were chopped up or voiced over.

Wouldn’t it be great if, over the next two weeks, we saw a couple of complete, uninterrupted performances from each member of the Top 21 — let’s say their final Hollywood Week solo and their Top 40 solo?

I, for one, will be hoping that happens.

As a promising start, Idol has leaked a complete uninterrupted performance from Franklin Boone.

As a less promising start, the clip begins with Alejandro Aranda chatting with Franklin, suggesting these episode could be chock full of filler.

Here’s that clip.