If that was Ellen DeGeneres' American Idol audition, she's earned a ticket to the next round.
Granted, as with the actual Idol auditioners, we've seen ludicrously little of DeGeneres so far. Her actual airtime was around three minutes on her opening show, and that was the one designed to showcase her.
Keep in mind, too, that what we did see was heavily edited, as these early Idol rounds always are. We won't get a true picture of how DeGeneres behaves, judges and interacts until the show moves into its live performance stage.
Still, simply by making its choice of what to show us, Idol may have told us volumes about the path DeGeneres plans to take and the impression she and the show hope to create. And that impression was very good, indeed.
Sitting in Paula Abdul's former seat between Simon Cowell and Kara DioGuardi, DeGeneres blended a bit of Abdul's den-mother act with her own, generally gentle sense of humor. ("That was crazy. Not in a good way.") Of course she made jokes; that's why the show hired her. But for the most part, she used her humor to deliver criticism, not as a substitute for it. And unlike Abdul (who, granted, set the bar incredibly low), her comments were usually cogent and to the point.
Her best moment in Tuesday's first show was her encounter with Skii Bo Ski, who sang Ain't Too Proud to Beg while stalking around the stage. She started out by jokingly comparing him to a leopard, but she quickly transitioned into actual, useful performance advice: "Don't frighten your audience. Don't get so intense. Sexy and scary — it's a fine line."
Again, it's early, but the tone throughout this introduction was one of professionalism, from DeGeneres (who switched to glasses-on professorial mode when reviewing the list of singers to cut) and from everyone else. Judicial squabbling is inevitable on Idol, but at least we were spared any upfront.
Yes, DeGeneres can't sing. But she's no less equipped to judge singing than the show's voters, and she's far better equipped than most — including the rest of the panel — to judge what it takes to be a star, which is what Idol is designed to find. As she said, she knows "what it's like to stand on stage and try to please an entire roomful of people." What she didn't add, but could have, is that she knows how to do more than "try." She can read what an audience wants, and then either deliver it or make that audience want something else.
If she can find that talent in another performer, Idol will be in fine shape, indeed.
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