AI3: Idol Eyes Re-Focus For Another Year

Kyle: "So who can you sing better than?"
Contestant (coyly, without hesitating): "Nikki Webster."

A strawberry kiss for a chocolate starfish, and a dangling conjunction for good measure. With that short exchange, the bar for the third series of Australian Idol was set.

Everyone get ready for about four months’ worth of bad singers, good singers, single mothers, touchdowns, sister-girlfriends, impassioned debate and sub-standard sentence structure.



Andrew "I Used To Be Fat" G is back with the same inexplicable love for the jeans/Converse/suit jacket combo, together with James "Droopy Eyes" Mathison and his cartoon journalist diction. Their power quotient after two successful Idol series has skyrocketed them to the post of deputy judge for Cairns, but they still need practice on reading those autocues. Where are they positioned? In the sky? What a pity Naomi Robson isn’t involved.



Everyone’s favourite sister-girlfriend, Marcia Hines, is back, with saliva dripping from her blood-thirsty and quite impressively polished fangs to renew her quest for a fresh ho to "hate on". Her declaration to one contestant, "You sang that brilliant," indicates she also has a bounty out on grammatical purists.



Mark "I Don’t Drive A" Holden is fresh from his world-beating on "X-Factor" to embrace skivvies on national television. Initially thought to be a Wiggles’ homage, Mark’s choice of red for Queensland and then blue for Victoria indicates it was actually a potent political statement.



Sadly, we have lost the only truly valuable judge, Dicko, whose assessments of contestants’ performances were without fail both accurate and insightful. His scathing attacks were always grounded in wit and intelligent humour. In his place, even more sadly, we now have the curiously effeminate Kyle "Lecherous Bogan Dating A Foetus, Said Foetus Surely Only Enduring Such Grotesque Torture To Advance A Dead-In-The-Water Pop Career" Sandilands, whose robust attempts at shock humour lack any semblance of wit and instead sound laboured and embarrassing. His best effort last night was, "You could saw a cat in half and get a better singer," which is really only amusing if you hate cats. It is otherwise a tad misleading, because what you end up with is actually an animal carcass in two parts and, presumably, quite a mess.

But let’s give Kyle time to settle in. In the meantime, we’ve got some "singers" to start loving and loathing. Young competitors of varying vocal ability and general literacy have bombarded respective audition venues in state capitals and other "regional centres" to make their mark on the Idol brand.

First stop: Queensland, home state of new judge Kyle and where teenage parenthood is apparently now a high school subject with significant practical content. Scores of innately disciplined young mums, dads and step-dads trod the fake parquetry of the temporary audition stage to face Kyle’s ridiculously sub-Dicko criticism and be smothered in affection by Marcia. Of course, sister-girlfriend can relate, having unleashed her spawn, Deni, at a similar age. It’s so good to know that she is a reasoned, professional judge impervious to unsubtle emotional bribery such as bringing one’s child on stage, isn’t it?

There have been some promising people to watch:



*That guy who tried out last year, didn’t get in, and subsequently quit some allegedly lucrative career to sing at regional festivals and grow a bad goatee
*That pig wrangling chick from Cairns
*Those hugging girls from Innisfail
*The dude who thinks he’s John Butler
*The Soulful Single Mum

Tonight, Idol Eyes focus on Victoria, with the promise of a stoush between the judging panel and a peroxide blonde with an intriguingly high level of self-appraisal.

Dicko or no Dicko, this year is going to be good. Or at least better than Nikki Webster.