Gustavo Caballero/Getty ImagesWe're still a few months away from the start of American Idol season eight, but we just can’t wait to see the drama unfold when the fourth chair gets pushed up at the judge’s table. If the non-Nigel Idol producers know anything about creating tension, they’ll put Paula and fresh blood Kara DioGuardi smack dab in the center of a Randy-Simon sandwich. Kara’s gonna be plucking Abdul’s press-on nails from out of her back all season long, we swear.
Four judges ain’t exactly reinventing the wheel when it comes to reality competitions—just ask Mary Murphy, the very vocal judge on Idol’s dancetastic counterpart, So You Think You Can Dance. Well, we just did. “We get another judge added every week on our show, so I think we already came up with that scenario,” sassed Miss M at a recent H-town do.
OK, so you’re already used to fresh meat on your show. What do the three Coca-Cola slurping AI judges have to look out for when Kara comes onboard? “Sometimes it takes a while to get to know that person next to you,” says M2. “You don’t know if you cut into what they’re saying, if they’re gonna get upset about it, if they’re not gonna get your comedy or your jokes...There’s always that one person.” Between British colloquialisms, slurring and doghouse speak, we have a feeling it’s K.D. who's not gonna understand a damn word said at that table. Talk about being out of place.
So what do you think the SYTYCD judges do better than R,P&S? The typically scream-happy Murph-hon kept her mouth shut on that one. “Everybody’s put up to the test against that, especially when we first started the show, everybody around the world was like, ‘Are you more like Simon? Are you more like Paula? Are you more like Randy?’ I ended up carving out my own niche by just being myself…I’m hoping people will come along thinking ‘Do you think you’re like Mary?’ I don’t think there are many people that are!”
No one quite so loud, at least.
—Additional sass by Becky Bain