"It's totally live -- and you really feel it when you're the one out there about to start dancing before millions," he says. "That's the best part of the show -- that it's live. If it was just a recorded show, your nerves wouldn't be as bad."
The 21-year-old performer says the emphasis on live is no accident.
"They set it up that way purposefully," he says of the show's producers. "Because it's live, the energy's different, the performances are more intense, and more respect comes from those watching the show."
Sheri Parks, professor of popular culture at the University of Maryland, said she believes that much of the success of Idol and Dancing is directly attributable to being live broadcasts -- perhaps more "live" than any other non-news show on television. Just as being live heightens performance on- screen, so does it intensify the viewing experience. And rather than all the new online media diminishing that power, they have only amplified it.
"So much of our lives are now virtual -- where we're online or we're going back to look at TV shows that have already aired or been online -- that we're often out of time-synch now," Parks says. "So, there is some real excitement in knowing that you're watching something unusual as it actually happens. While it's something we might have taken for granted 20 years ago, now it's special, because so much of our lives are lived in online replay."
Parks says that while she believes Abdul's behavior might raise some "ethical questions" for Idol, ultimately the on-air mistakes can be a good thing on a variety of levels.
"Such goofs remind us that the judges and performers are human and that this is live -- and they collapse that distance that has been created because of the virtual nature of viewing television online the last few years," she says.
"Besides, we all -- children, particularly -- compare TV reality to social reality, and unfortunately, social reality comes up short. It's a good thing for all of us to be reminded that TV reality's not perfect either."
david.zurawik@baltsun.com
