First off, let me just say that I am a huge Idol fan. I’ve watched since Season 1. I’ve even made friendly wagers on the success and failure of certain contestants. But, alas, my friends, Idol is dead. Idol is dead because:

5) It Is Meaningless Who Wins

Sure Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood are past winners, but so are Taylor Hicks and Jordin Sparks. It makes no difference whether you finish 6th or 1st to determine future album sales. The only reason people at the top tend to do better is because they tend to be better. But once you get to the top 6, even 10, they will have all had plenty of exposure to “make it.” Knowing this as an audience makes the final 6 weeks or so irrelevant (Unless you really want to see your favorite contestant sing an inevitably crappy song at the very end of the show.)

4) Bad Mentors

Neil Diamond. FAIL. Dolly Parton. FAIL. Nobody under 50 knows or cares who these people are, much less the teens and twentysomething contestants. And, by the way, singing show tunes is never a good idea UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE.

3) No Guest Judges

What happened to the guest judges like Jewel and Quentin Tarantino? I don’t really care what they think either, but at least they made things interesting by crowding out face time for Paula and Randy. And Tarantino was brutally honest, awkwardly so at times. This is good television.

2) Bad Contestants

It’s not that the contestants are any worse now than previous years, because if you go back and watch the early years, on the whole they are MUCH better now; It’s that they are too good. They’re professionals. And so now when they sing well (as they know they can) they have to act like amateurs and fake their surprise at audience applause and effusive praise from the judges. (I’m looking at you Brooke White, Melinda Doolitle, and David Archuleta.)

1) Paula

Paula used to be kind of cute in a puppy-with-a-cone-around-its-head sort of way and her sparring with Simon had an odd sexual tension to it (emphasis on the word ‘odd’), but now it’s just tired. The dolphin-like clapping, the mangled speech, the endless ‘I’m so proud of you,’ ‘you’re already a star’ comments, we’ve heard it. If every contestant is already a star, then why the f*ck are we doing this?

Wait. Why are we doing this?