Like many of us, American Idol is social distancing. The first pandemic-era episode of the singing competition aired Sunday night, featuring remote performances from the contestants and commentary from judges Lionel Richie, Luke Bryan, and the indefatigably wacky Katy Perry, who donned a hand sanitizer costume for the entire two-hour episode. Let it never be forgotten that she’s pop music’s answer to a theme-park worker. She’s so unusual! The giant, impressively printed costume did nothing to deter her from taking her job as a judge seriously, and here are some highlights of Perry saying extremely earnest things to the contestants while encased in cardboard:
The contestants performed frequently stripped-down versions of songs in their living rooms and yards. Here’s what that was like:
Great. Just great. One guy had a Christmas tree up. That was surprising, though to be fair, sometimes it does snow in April.
There’s also a “viral sensation” named Lauren Spencer-Smith who’s competing on this show, which in the past 10 years has lost the track record it once had of manufacturing pop stars. She’d probably be better off sticking with YouTube, but I guess every little bit of exposure helps. Just my two cents.