Paula: Idol's been weak, but no longer

Even die-hard fans will admit last season's American Idol wasn't that good--at times I actually felt bad for all the new people jumping on the bandwagon, since I didn't want them to think the relatively uninteresting pool of top 12 contestants was reflective of how great the show has been in past years.

In some ways, AI was a victim of its own success--people are now too aware of how big a deal the show is, which means you get a lot more self-promoting-types trying out, instead of real diamonds in the rough.

Now, it turns out even Paula Abdul realized the show's been on a downward trend.

"I think we have all the makings for the best season we've ever had," Abdul says, having watched auditions in San Diego, Dallas, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Miami, Omaha and Charleston, S.C.

"What's really interesting is that the last three years, I didn't remember a lot of the kids. This season, it started off a little shaky, but we began seeing some amazing people and getting hopeful. It really is anyone's game this time, with equal male and female talent." ...

As exciting as the final stretch typically is - particularly with unexpected factors like last season's "How did he get so far?" run by Sanjaya Malakar - Abdul admits that early on, "it becomes unbelievably tedious, especially when we only put one of 30 kids through [to the competition in Hollywood], but that's when Simon kicks into full gear of playing pranks and being obnoxious.

Check out the full preview interview with Paula here.

And let's hope she's right about this year's crop of contestants.

Photo of Paula Abdul by Sam Jones/FOX