First, some housekeeping. I'm absolutely sure that anyone who has a vague interest in the Idol phenomenum have been to this website, but it's worth mentioning anyway:

www.worldidol.tv

Now, onto my thoughts ...

I've heard a lot of things about there only being the one show and how we have to judge the singers on that. Someone mentioned (and I agree with) that seeing the other singers on one show means that we didn't have time to get emotionally invested in the singers. The reason Idol shows around the world work is because we see them from the start - gawky, messy looking, ordinary people in the beginning who become superstars at the end.

It was also suggested (and I'm not so sure I think this is a good idea) that it should be run as a separate full length competition - over a few weeks eliminating one or two people per week until there is one left. With that comes logistical problems with stars having to travel thousands of kilometers for shows and paying judges to do the same. Then there's no garuantee that the producers and the television stations would make any money and therefore I doubt very much that it will happen.

Sadly, it's only money that keeps these shows on the air and after all the books are balanced after World Idol, I think they'll see that people just aren't interested in voting for anyone other than their own countrymen. I believe that the number of votes received in each country is going to be way down on what they made each week on their own Idols and I believe that it will be dumped after this year. I mean, to top it off, would all 11 of those countries even *have* another Idol to put into such a competition? I can't see a Pan Arabic Idol 2, can you?

Another quirky suggestion I have heard is to have Runner-up World Idol - pitting the second placegetters against one another. I know that this was a suggestion made with tongue firmly implanted in cheek, but it's really not so bad an idea! I mean I think that you would get a much wider group rather than just 'most marketable' - and considering that the majority would have received recording contracts as well, they would not be any less a singer.

Onto more about the actual World Idol show. Sadly, I have to say that for the majority, this was a glorified Karaoke competition! Heck, I've been *in* Karaoke competitions that had better singers than most of those who performed in World Idol. I was apalled! The only ones to make any impact on me at all were Guy (I know that you might possibly say that this was no surprise but I genuinely went into viewing the show thinking that I would be completely impartial and yet I still came to this conclusion), Kurt, Ryan and Alex. Boy, what a punchy voice she has! She's very Bjorkesque, isn't she? Sadly, I think Kelly will take it out - only because she is so well known throughout the world and that is an attribute that few of the others have. Just like almost everyone else, I've bopped along to Miss Independence. That's *got* to have some influence on people! The majority of those people have never seen Guy before that night! It would have been much fairer to pit the second USA title winner in this competition - someone who was on an even keel with the other Idols.

Upon thinking about it more, I still have to say to myself that Guy should be the winner. If not then I really liked Ryan - he had a great voice and he was full of energy (yes, I know that the German guy had ... err ... energy, of a kind - but that is the kind of energy that we can all do without). By comparison, Ryan held the audience's attention and his voice was smooth. All that being said, I didn't vote. I couldn't have stood the agony if the person I voted for won over Guy! And I have to wonder if that is what a lot of other Idol fans were thinking as well.

Excuse my tome - it really is a little over the top I know - I wanted to get this all out before the finale - which I highly doubt will have anything more than the singing of the winner - and perhaps a runner up. As it was, they had to fit a four hour stretch of recording into ninety minutes (that actually stretched to just on 110 minutes in reality), I would highly doubt that you could get all the singers in, along with crosses to our local hosts and the announcements with the prerequisite uber-pauses through three ad breaks before actually announcing the winner into a mere sixty minutes (the running time that our TV guide says this will be).

But we'll see ...

Vicki Whyte