Time for TV Jedi to raise lightsabers against dark empire

You know that scene in "Star Wars" where the old guy with the beard is using what looks like an early beta version of "Tron" to explain that there's a tiny hole -- roughly the size of the womp rats back on Tatooine -- through which the entire Death Star could be brought down and peace could be restored to the universe?

Sanjaya was just such a hole.

Last year, the goofy teenager with more hairdos than talent helped expose a flaw in the voting process, one of several signs of trouble for the new season of "American Idol" (8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, KVVU-TV, Channel 5).

The Death Star analogy is nothing new. Rival networks have been using it for years to describe the way the 800-pound ratings gorilla destroys anything and everything in its path while casting a dark shadow across the rest of the TV landscape.

But last season, a small fleet of rebels led by Howard Stern and votefortheworst.com nearly derailed the juggernaut by keeping the god-awful Sanjaya around for weeks past his expiration date, simply because "Idol" has viewers vote for their favorites instead of the person who should go home. Last season proved it's far easier to speed-vote for one horrible singer than against as many as 11 mediocre ones.

The whole thing was nearly enough to make an angry Simon Cowell bust right through one of his too-tight T-shirts.

But while Stern and the Web site are expected to be just as active this year, there are indications that after six seasons, "Idol's" popularity finally may be waning.

In May, 30.7 million people tuned in to see Jordin Sparks' coronation, down from the 36.4 million who watched the previous finale. And audiences stayed away from this summer's "Idol" concert tour, which played to half-empty arenas that were at or near capacity the year before.

This fall, Sparks sold 119,000 copies of her album in its first week. That's less than half of Fantasia's opening-week sales of 240,000, the previous worst debut from an "Idol" winner.

In their first weeks, former champs Ruben Studdard and Taylor Hicks sold a respective 400,000 and 298,000 albums, and both of them recently lost their record deals, as did season five runner-up, Katharine McPhee.

Even "Idol's" recent victories are somewhat muted.

Carrie Underwood, Kellie Pickler, Bucky Covington and Josh Gracin have found varying degrees of success on the country charts. But let's be honest, the modern country audience isn't always the most discriminating. (Toby Keith? "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off"?)

And while rocker Chris Daughtry had the top-selling album of 2007, his band was named favorite adult contemporary artist at the American Music Awards. "Idol's" first real chance of having a singer with some street cred has so far rocked so gently, he's made Nickelback look like GWAR.

But at least he has a career. Many of the other alums have been American idled.

Season three runner-up Diana DeGarmo will try to become a country star, alongside Bobby Brown and "The Brady Bunch's" Maureen McCormick, on CMT's "Gone Country."

Jessica Sierra's many troubles, which led a judge last week to sentence her to a year in a rehabilitation clinic, are on display in VH1's "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew."

And despite a stint on "The Bold and the Beautiful," Constantine Maroulis was calling bingo numbers last month at an Indian casino in Wisconsin.

Viewer apathy, though, may be the least of "Idol's" worries. Stern and Vote for the Worst really seemed to strike a nerve last year.

I've always been surprised that rival networks haven't set up phone banks to try to mess with the show's success. And Hollywood writers, who've long held a grudge against reality TV, have plenty of time on their hands this year.

But the real threat could come from the general public. "Idol" may average roughly 30 million viewers, but that leaves some 270 million Americans who couldn't care less and, frankly, are probably tired of having the show crammed down their throats as it keeps series they'd rather be watching off the air.

For five months of the year, the other four networks sacrifice as many as 16 hours a week to "Idol," assuming that anything put up against it would be completely overshadowed.

Maybe it's time for those nonviewers to rise up and take back the 20 percent of prime-time being held hostage by a singing competition.

May the Force be with them.

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Mondays. E-mail him at clawrence@reviewjournal.com.