Idol Chatter & Voice Views

And now I continue my crusade to convince the creators of American Idol that the changes to this year’s semifinal format are contemptible. Folly that should never again be foisted upon the show’s faithful followers.

Call it: “Why I Hate Idol’s New Format, Part III: Basic Math.”

What does math have to do with Idol’s format change, you might ask.

Well, have you noticed how these two-hour semifinal shows seem to slip along at a snail’s pace?

There’s a good reason. And it all boils down to math.

Follow along.

1. We all know by now that in Idol land, a song never lasts more than a minute and 30 seconds.

2. And we all know that 12 singers have been performing during each semifinal show.

3. Multiply a minute and a half by 12 and you have a grand total of 18 minutes of singing.

4. Now do some division and you’ll discover that 18 minutes of singing amounts to just 15 percent of a two-hour show.

5. Even if we allow Idol 25 minutes of commercials per hour, we’re left with 70 minutes of showtime.

6. That’s 18 minutes of singing versus 52 minutes of gabbing. Not a very good ratio of music to talk for a show that’s all about singing.

So what’s the best we can hope for?

More commercials featuring Eliza Dushku?

OK, that might spice things up for male viewers, but how about more singing, Idol?

It’s too late for changes this year, but should you stubbornly stick with this faulty format in the future, how about letting each contestant sing twice during a semifinal show.

Thirty-six minutes of music in 120 minutes of TV time doesn’t seem like too much to ask for, certainly not when we’re supposed to be searching for our next singing Idol.

And, if each contestant sang twice, we’d have a better idea whether some of these folks are justly getting the boot or whether they just made a poor song choice.

Some other new reasons I’ve come up with to dislike this new format …

1. The Adam Lambert factor: Wow, wasn’t Adam great last week? The best performance of the season, right? Wouldn’t it be great to see more? To be able to look forward to what he’d do week after week? Under the old format, we would have been treated to just that. This year … too bad. He won’t perform again until the finals.

2. The Brooke White factor: Wasn’t it nice to see Brooke again last week? By last year this time, I had already downloaded a couple of Brooke White performances from iTunes. This year? None of the best performers have sung more than once. And how many download-worthy performances have there been? I count two. Alexis Grace in week one; Adam Lambert last week. Under this new format, we’re missing out on lots of great performances.

3. The Adam Lambert factor #2: Wow, didn’t Adam look comfortable on stage last week? Little wonder. He’s been doing theater since age 10. Not many of the other contestants have that kind of background. They could use the exposure and the routine of performing week in and week out. The new format seems to unfairly favor those who: a) entered the competition with the most stage experience; b) got the most exposure on Idol prior to the semifinals.

Oh, well, this is what we’re stuck with in season eight.

And regardless of the format, we’re in for an action-packed week.

Coming later Monday: Predictions for round three of the semifinals.

Coming Tuesday: Live blogging during round three, followed by a recap of the show.

Coming Wednesday: Live blogging during the results show, when we’ll learn the names of three more finalists and, I would imagine, the names of the 12 contestants who will get a second chance during the wild card show.

Coming Thursday: Live blogging during the wild card show, which will end with the naming of the last three finalists.