• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, January 5, 2016

What is there left to say about “American Idol”?

Predictably, you’re seeing columns this week about the show’s significance in the pantheon of TV history. The occasion for this outpouring of affection -- in some cases from critics and columnists who never had any affection for it in the first place -- is the premiere this week of the show’s 15th and final season (Wednesday night at 8 Eastern on Fox).

Yes, “American Idol” was a bona fide phenomenon for several years at the outset, and many of us can still name its early winners – Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, Fantasia Barrino and Carrie Underwood from seasons 1-4. By Season Five, our memories start to trail off --Taylor Hicks (Season Five), Jordin Sparks (six), David Cook (seven), Kris Allen (eight). By now, you’re probably asking yourself: Kris Allen? Who’s he?

Between Kris Allen and the present day, there were six additional winners. Quick -- name them! 

I don’t mean to disparage these winners, who are all likely very talented and for whom winning “American Idol” was probably life-changing. I should be so lucky as to win something like that, but as far as I know, there has never been a competition-reality show called “The Next Great TV Columnist!” (nor should there be).

It’s just that the trajectory of “American Idol,” from unique and different at the beginning (it premiered in June 2002) to just ordinary here in the present day, is the same path taken by so many other such phenomena that started up in the early years of the 21st century’s first decade, but more recently have been overtaken by the explosion of media choices that we have today. 

In this context, the early ’00s were a Golden Age for reality-TV shows that everyone talked about and also watched. “Survivor” set the table for all of it when it premiered on CBS in summer 2000 -- two years before “Idol” -- and became the runaway hit of the year.

You might also hypothesize that the ball got rolling some months before “Survivor,” with the Fox special called “Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?,” which aired in February 2000 and became, for a time at least, the nation’s most talked-about TV show.

Along those same lines, who can forget the Fox series called “Joe Millionaire,” in which a group of greedy young women fought over a handsome bachelor who was not really a millionaire at all, but just an average Joe? If memory serves, he drove a bulldozer for a living. “Joe Millionaire” premiered in January 2003. In that same vein, “The Bachelor” came along on ABC in March 2002, the same month “The Osbournes” premiered on MTV.

The television era today is so different. In today’s environment, nothing really seems to gain the kind of traction that these shows did in those days before YouTube, Netflix and all the other streaming services. It doesn’t seem possible that anything will either.

Of course, “American Idol” also benefited from that peculiar alchemy that results from dumb luck -- in its case the casting of its three original judges or, more to the point, two of them: Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell.

She was a relative has-been. He was this unknown quantity from the U.K. who was supposedly a big shot in the British music industry. The third wheel on this blind date was Randy Jackson, a bass player who participated in recording sessions with a number of superstar artists, but as far as the public was concerned, he might as well have been anonymous.

As much as anything else, the Paula Abdul-Simon Cowell chemistry made “American Idol” what it was. And it didn’t hurt that the show gave ordinary people a shot at superstardom, with some of the winners actually achieving it.

Today, the show features three superstar judges -- Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez and Harry Connick Jr. (pictured above) -- which has the effect of shifting the focus away from the aspirants to the judges. In fact, these three judges seem so hungry for attention that you can hear them rudely chattering and joking among themselves while auditioners stand before them performing. At least the old “Idol” judges kept their mouths shut during the auditions, no matter how appalling they might have been.

Oh, well. So it’s not the same old “American Idol” of legend. Still, it’s entirely possible that the winner of this last “Idol” will achieve the superstardom he or she seeks. And that’s really the point, isn’t it?

The 15^th and final season of “American Idol” premieres Wednesday (Jan. 6) at 8 p.m. Eastern on Fox.