American Idol has Jumped the Shark with Didgeridoos & Bagpipes & Dippy Kara

Dancing With The Stars was #1 in the latest Nielsen Ratings, coming out on top of American Idol for the first time.

I'm thinking this marks the end of American Idol's rating's dominance, after a slow decline, a decline which began with what I believe was American Idol's Jump the Shark moment, that being the hiring of the extremely annoying and extremely un-entertaining, Kara DioGuardi, as a 4th judge.

Jumping the Shark is a term that is used to mark the moment a previously successful TV show begins to decline, where the show starts to tinker with its formula in attempts to slow up it's decline. In regular series this may be ridiculous plot changes, like when the Conner family became rich due to winning the lottery. Roseanne did not last long after that. Often when producers note a decline, things like cast changes are made, i.e. Kara DioGuardi.

The Jump the Shark phrase came from a Happy Days episode where tough guy, Fonzie, in swimming suit and leather jacket, puts on water skis and proceeds to jump over a shark, turning the already cartoonish Fonzie into a ridiculous joke, marking the decline of Happy Days, which continued another 7 years after Fonzie did his shark jumping.

I suspect the decline of American Idol will come much quicker.

The Kara addition last year was followed by this year's expulsion of Paula Abdul, with Abdul replaced by Ellen DeGeneres. Initially, many viewers thought the Ellen addition would be a good thing, but judging from what I read on TV Forums, a lot of the viewers have reacted the same as I have, in that, Ellen's sense of humor grows stale. She adds little.

This year American Idol has tweaked its production. Take last night for example. We see backstage scenes, intro clips, an additional after the judging moment of camera time, followed by being greeted by the other singers.

Somehow there is way way way more time for judges' comments. We start with Randy, end with Simon, and sometimes go back and forth with further comments. Then Ryan asks some more followup questions. Even the contestant gets into it with questions and comments.

Last year, with 4 judges yapping, I remember one instance where time was so short there was no time for Simon to say anything, so he just stood and gave Adam Lambert a standing ovation.

Were the shows only an hour long at this point last year? Is that why there is so much bloat, this year? Filling up 2 hours? I could not watch this without the DVR invention.

Ironically, with the production values seeming to be amped up, with a lot more camera time spent on the contestants, this is widely believed to be the lamest final group the show has ever found.

Another Jump the Shark thing is people seem to be laughing at the judges in a way they didn't before. As in they seem to have made jokes of themselves. Last week Tim Urban was widely seen to have owned the judges, flipping it back on them in a good-humored way. This week, as if the judges realized how bad they'd been, flipped the other direction and heaped positive on the boy. He did not seem to know quite what to make of it.

It now seems obvious, to many, that losing Paula Abdul greatly altered the chemistry of American Idol, in a very bad way. Kara's odd interacting with Simon has really put people off. It has none of the loopy charm Paula brought to her Simon interactions.

The final nail in the American Idol coffin will be Simon Cowell leaving. Simon has seemed a bit detached at times, like his heart isn't in it. And really, why would it be?

Were the didgeridoo and bagpipes last night more minor shark jumping? With way too much time focused on both?

Tim Urban for the win. That'd be an awesome Jump the Shark moment for American Idol.

UPDATE: Wednesday's Results Show reminded me I forgot one other American Idol Jump the Shark element, that being the Judge's Save that was added a season or two ago.