Love this story from The DailyNews
Everybody loses with Paula Abdul’s departure from “American Idol.”
Not because Paula is a “tremendous talent,” as the “Idol” producers said in a vaguely disingenuous statement released late last night. She’s not.
Not because the show can’t replace her. If it wants to, it can.
Not because the show won’t go on, which it will, without so much as a symbolic empty Coke cup where Paula once sat.
Not that viewers will be plunged into terminal gloom. All but the most devoted Paula-philes will grumble and watch anyway.
It’s not even that in the end, it matters all that much. Love or hate “American Idol,” it’s a television show.
But it’s a television show that tens of millions of people watch, and it’s a television show that over eight seasons has created a family that we feel we know and with which we feel comfortable.
Now it’s breaking up.
If you hadn’t noticed, we get as unhappy when that happens to our TV families as when it happens with our real-life families. No matter how much your sister may drive you nuts, the only reason you want her to leave home is if you get her room. Since none of us is getting Paula’s room, we’d prefer that she stay.
Especially since we don’t quite understand why she’s going.
She says it was her call, which is probably technically true. The question is what drove her to make it. A lowball offer? No offer?
The statement from the “Idol” team did not suggest it had made any real effort to keep her, and if that’s true, it’s hard to figure why not. Even if the show has to spend millions locking up Ryan Seacrest and probably Simon Cowell, it makes many more millions – and the on-air family, with Paula right there in every picture, is a big part of the reason.
Perhaps someone noticed that Paula can drive us nuts with her loony superlatives. And yes, she’s the family ditz.
But for eight seasons those have been reasons to keep her, not drop her.
She’s not the star of the team. But to be as personable as Paula for a TV camera is harder than it looks, and what she has done really well is play her position. Every team needs role players. So does every family.
It’s hard to imagine that “Idol” has someone waiting who can play off Simon and give wounded contestants the same warm-milk love that Paula could.
Whatever Kara’s merits, she can’t do it, at least the same way.
On the other side, it’s also hard to imagine Paula will find another gig as sweet as this one.
She’s resilient enough to find something, of course, and no, there is no crystal ball for analyzing celebrity careers. Just a few weeks ago here, I blithely said there was no way Paula wouldn’t re-up with “Idol,” because it made too much sense for everyone.
It still would have. But it didn’t happen. So now there’s a hole in the family that neither Paula’s goodbye Tweet or the “Idol” team’s terse final wave fully explains.
All we know is that for the moment at least, TV’s favorite show just became a little less fun.
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