Seasons

When you look at the approval ratings for the first few Season One episodes, it's a minor miracle that the show survived long enough to become a cultural phenomenon. Idol fans and producers owe an enormous debut of gratitude to Kelly Clarkson and Tamyra Gray for keeping the ship afloat in those rough early seas, at least until the infant series found its footing in, of all places, big band music.

While Season One had the lowest average approval rating of any season thus far, Season Two, perhaps surprisingly, boasted the highest of the first seven. Certainly the epic duel between Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken played a big part, but give credit to the rest of the Top 12 as well: despite all the controversies and rumored backstage conflicts, the AI2 Crew was the first in which all twelve finalists posted at least one above-average rated performance (50 or higher).

Another curiosity: although Season Three rated below average and featured enough train wrecks to bankrupt the entire American insurance industry, it also produced the most five-star performances, 21. Seven different Idols contributed to that total, but the Big Three Divas combined for more than two-thirds. Of course, that trio would be Fantasia Barrino, LaToya London, and ... Diana DeGarmo?!? Believe it.

Season Four is best remembered for a record seven performances that reached the rarified 90 threshold, four alone by Bo Bice. That's one more than AI5 and AI6 had combined. That Bice didn't win despite outscoring Carrie Underwood by nearly 15 points would seem like an injustice on the surface, but subsequent events suggest that the voters, at least for that one season, knew precisely what they were doing.

What Season Five lacked in showstoppers, it made up for in star power: its celebrated Final 5 all finished with approval ratings above 55.0 and produced a pair of Top 40 hitmakers, a future TV star, and a winner who went on to be a Vegas headliner. Which one was highest? The answer is, amazingly, 'none of the above.' The top-rated AI5 contestant finished ninth.

Season Six was a struggle: a mean performance rating of just 49.2, and a most-ever 63 performances coming in at 1-star or 2-stars. But AI6 also comes with a twist: eight of its oft-maligned 12 finalists finished with above-average approval ratings, tied for the most of any season to that point. Look closely and you'll find a diverse, eclectic, and oftentimes rebellious crew who were unafraid to take risks, both in terms of song choice and presentation. Some of those risks ended in triumph and others, um, made little girls cry. Grown men too.

Though its Finale had been preordained for weeks, and the journey to the Nokia Theater was peppered with fits and starts (and occasional re-starts), Season Seven did succeed in one important aspect: it managed, just barely, to post an average approval rating above 50. No, it didn't live up to all that Most Talented Top 24 Ever™ hype, but it provided a lot of memorable performances plus a surprise winner who looks to be a keeper.

About the best thing we can say about Season Eight is that it ended on time, and that it underscored our position that approval ratings aren't everything. Though it was the first season to crack 51 on average, it also cracked a lot of Idol fans' loyalty and patience. From a patently rigged semifinals to a brazenly bogus Wild Card to judges who continually seemed to be listenting to completely different performances than America, AI8 was a mess from start to finish. But it did uncover several very fine singers plus perhaps the most unexpected victor: the unassuming, unhyped, and unusually imaginative Kris Allen.

As for Season Nine...well, it started on time. Unfortunately, it went downhill from there. Despite the best efforts of winner Lee DeWyze to keep the music fresh and interesting, and of runner-up Crystal Bowersox to keep it listenable, AI9 was a slog. Why? There were enough suspects and murder weapons to stock a game of Clue. But sadly, we'd have to go with Mr. & Ms. Voter, in the Top 16 Week, with the Telephone: three strong midcard candidates were axed in favor of three adorable young-'uns whose still-developing talents simply couldn't sustain the first half of the Finals. By the time a reasonably strong Final Four had been reached, most Idol fans had mentally tuned out...as had departing judge Simon Cowell, many weeks earlier.

Season Ten saw the departure of three judges, the addition of two new ones, the return of producer Nigel Lythgoe, the prediction of imminent doom for the franchise...and somehow, a very strong and entertaining season, against all odds. Though many fans grumbled that AI10 was short of "moments", it was also blessedly free of train wrecks: just 5 of 146 performances fell into 1-star territory. At 53.6, it was the highest-rated season to date, even though it also produced the lowest-rated winner to date. Of course, if he generates even one-third the record sales of the previous holder of that dubious title, no one will complain.

If you believed the judges, who irked viewers by giving standing ovations after seemingly every performance, Season Eleven boasted the best singing of any Idol season in history. However, if you believe our WNTS approval ratings...uh, gee, what do you know: it really did. AI11 clocked in at 54.5, with a record-shattering 68 performances at 4-stars or higher and no Finals episode scoring below 52. It even produced a blessed-be-real excellent coronation song, which nobody expected. We tip our caps to a deep Top 13 without any real weak links, and to a Final 7 who were uniformly superb, even if they began to slip a bit towards the end. But we still wished we could superglue the judges to their seats.

Season Twelve never happened. We're sure of it. True, there are rumors circulating through the Idolsphere about a guys' side of the draw that didn't turn in a five-star performance all season (and didn't break 50 even one time during the Finals!), five girls who were actually quite terrific even if their song choices often hovered between terrible and terrifying, themes that frequently pre-dated color television, the most dysfunctional judging panel in the history of reality TV, and Nielsen ratings that plummeted so precipitously that the entire production crew was summarily fired by Fox before the confetti finished falling. Lies. All lies. Except the part about the winner being really good, maybe.

The unsung heroes of Season Thirteen? The voters. Week after week, they pruned the thin field with deadly precision, almost always sending home one of the two lowest-rated singers every Thursday night. Good thing too, because just four of the 20 contestants managed to post an approval rating above the season average of 52. But, all four were above 60, and thanks to the near-perfect elimination pattern, the firm of Johnson, Irene (née Asciutto), Preston and Meuse, Ltd., combined to give 90 of the 165 performances, or 55 percent. That papered over a lot of flaws – poorly-paced and filler-laden shows, too much focus on the (mostly good) judges, a universally-panned "Rush Week" semifinal format, and much more. Lucky.

We don't remember a thing about Season Fourteen. No, seriously. Even looking through its Season page, our overarching thought is, "Who the hell are these people?" The winner has barely been heard from since. The two singers we most enjoyed each week (even if their performances were hit-or-miss) went out sixth and seventh. The season failed to produce a single 90-rated "showstopper" performance, though we happen to think one was absolutely robbed of that honor. All things considered, we're pretty sure AI14 really did take place given all the data we collected. But don't quote us on that.

The original incarnation of American Idol went out with...well, not a bang really, but not a whimper either. Season Fifteen had three dreadful semifinal episodes, a thin midcard, and a trio of finalists who produced exactly one above-50 performance in 17 tries. Oh yeah, and it had Trent Harmon. and La'Porsha Renae too. The former won, produced both 90-rated performances of the season (on the same song!), and ended up tied for the highest-rated male contestant of AI 1.0. The latter came in second and notched the first full-season "perfect game" (every performance she gave rated out 50 or higher) in history. We're not sure there would have been an AI 2.0 if it weren't for those two.

American Idol's hiatus lasted all of 22 months. When it returned in 2018, the network had changed (to ABC), the judges had changed (to Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, and Luke Bryan), the format had sort-of changed (just five Finals weeks, simulcasted across the US, with voting results announced at the end of each show.) Mostly though, the series returned intact for its second incarnation, and Season Sixteen turned out pretty well all things considered. Iowa singer-songwriter Maddie Poppe. pitched a perfect game and won handily, defeating Caleb Lee Hutchinson and Gabby Barrett in AI's first three-way Finale. Though the season average finished below 50 for the first time since Simon Cowell's departure, AI16 did produce a gem of an episode starring, of all things, a mouse.

After a strong set of preliminary rounds, capped by a terrific beach concert in Hawaii, Idol fans could be excused if their expectations for Season Seventeen were very high. Once the live shows started, however, AI17 posted a disappointing 49.3 average that would have been truly abysmal if not for Jeremiah Lloyd Harmon. Becoming just the second contestant to post a 5-star average and the first male one to pitch a WNTS perfect game, Harmon cruised to a...um, sixth-place finish. Did we mention the judges used their lone Save that night on a different contestant? Oy. Winner Laine Hardy was remarkably consistent from week-to-week, but the breakout star would seem to be runner-up electronica artist Alejandro Aranda.

"Flattening the curve" used to mean just our post-season ratings normalization. But, the phrase became much more serious in 2020 due to the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, which locked down the nation just as the Season Eighteen semifinals were about to begin. ABC and Fremantle had to call an audible, resulting in the first all-online American Idol competition. The contestants sang from their homes, the judges critiqued them from theirs, Ryan Seacrest hosted each episode from his garage...and yet, somehow, it all turned out pretty well. The format didn't lend itself to showstopping moments, and the four-week mass-elimination format felt more like a demolition derby than a singing competition, but the season averaged almost 51, and a perpetually-smiling New York City subway singer earned herself a most remarkable title.