The problem started with the producers of Idol, the highest-rated show on TV, changing the format just before Tuesday night's telecast. The plan was to have each contestant sing two songs, and then have the judges critique them both. But just before airtime, a decision was made to have the judge's respond to each song.
After Castro had finished his first number, Abdul reviewed his performance commenting both on song number one -- and the song he had yet to sing.
Later in the broadcast, Abdul said that she became confused while looking at her notes and had thought she was critiquing the performance of another male contestant -- rather than Castro.
But then on Wednesday, she changed her story and said she had inadvertently seen part of a dress rehearsal for Tuesday night's live show and mixed up Castro's performance in dress rehearsal with the performance he had not yet given during the live broadcast.
"We all just screwed up everything," she said. "But we all went, `This is live TV -- it's actually fun.'"
Abdul has a history of goofs during her seven years as an Idol judge. They range from doing a series of network morning show interviews last year in which she appeared drunk, to looking as if she had fallen asleep at the judges' desk during the auditions in Omaha last summer. She blamed both on prescription medications and exhaustion.
Two years ago, ABC News reported claims that she had an affair with a male contestant. Abdul refused to comment, but made light of the situation in a skit on NBC's Saturday Night Live.
Some analysts speculated that her admission last week that judges sometimes saw dress rehearsals and drafted comments in response to what they saw would damage the credibility of the show.
But if a judge having an affair with a contestant didn't do serious damage to viewer trust, it is hard to see how the same judge watching a dress rehearsal and taking notes would.
As to her lifting a curtain on the practice of live shows having dress rehearsals, how else could the producers time a telecast without such pre-air run-throughs? It is a process that started in 1948 with one of prime-time network TV's earliest live telecasts, NBC's legendary The Milton Berle Show. It has continued for the past 60 years.
Nor do such run-throughs make the shows feel less live and more contrived -- at least to the contestants, according to Mario, the Baltimore-born rhythm & blues singer who is a finalist on Dancing with the Stars. The ABC program is the second highest rated series on television.
