Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

This season of American Idol is widely considered to be the worst yet.  At times so predictable that it puts you to sleep, at other times an unrelenting slog of shocking misery.  Here are ten ways we can improve the show for next season and ensure that it will be interesting, no matter what the contestant pool is like.

1. Some say Ameriacn Idol is too sponsored.  I say it isn’t sponsored enough.  It’s almost at the point where the blatant advertisement is entertaining in itself, and with a little work we can push it over that line.  Have Tattoo Day, and let every contestant pick his favorite snack food logo.  You can work it into Rocker Night.  Increase the drama by having them wear Gap branded blindfolds.  Install that Coca-Cola waterfall you’ve been eyeing.
2. Randy Jackson gives us a behind-the-scenes look at his struggle to reclaim his grasp of the English language.  Watch brief clips of him working with a speech language pathologist as he tries to stop “Yo-yo-yo”-ing and begins using sentences that include prepositions.  A triumph of semantics.
3. Paula Abdul goes the opposite route after producers secretly restore her old vitamin regimin.  As she imbibes the resultant drug cocktail over the course of the season, she becomes less coherent and a thousand times more entertaining.  Eventually she will sit at the judges’ table wearing nothing but gold glitter, throwing beads at the male contestants and chanting the words, “Shiney and special” over and over.
4. Simon Cowell and Ryan Seacrest need to drop the act and just do it already.  Their anger and self-loathing should result in something reminiscent of that first scene from Brokeback Mountain.  Remember?  Of course you do.  You can’t tell me it wouldn’t have people talking the next day.
5. Speaking of Ryan, let’s engineer his wardrobe to make him two inches taller every week.  He’ll be an amazing 7’5″ on finale night, and he’ll have to wear a cloak to mask the stilts he’s standing on.  He’ll tower over the remaining singers like a metrosexual Grim Reaper.  Ominous.
6. Please don’t mock the retarded or the transgendered.  Really.  It’s one thing to accidentally pass these people all the way up to the judges on a hectic audition day, but quite another to pour over the day’s footage and think to yourself, “Yes, putting this person on national TV under an aura of derision is a good idea.  No, wait, it’s not a good idea.  It’s a great idea.  Now I’ll go drink to drown the pain.”
7. Declare a season-long moratorium on songs from the 1970s.  I’m begging you.  Nothing good came from that decade.  Exceptions will be made for the Beatles, if any contestant really thinks he can pull it off.
8. Do Keith Richards night.  I’m not talking about the music, let them choose absolutely any song they’d like.  Just make sure that ten minutes prior to the performance, they spin a representative wheel of narcotics and then get injected with whatever comes up.
9. The finale should come down to a knife fight.
10. As always, ninjas make everything better.  Just a thought.