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By Susan Young, Film.com

Simon Cowell is cranky.

Not just everyday testy in his regular "knickers in a twist" way. No, Cowell clearly wants to move on with his life, and by moving on we mean getting as far away from Paula Abdul and bad singers as he possibly can. Maybe he's just tired of being Mr. Mean Jeans, so he's lashing out in any way that he can.

But what he pulled in Tuesday's opening Idol was just wrong, like going after that poor guy Michael (whose surname should be hidden to protect the idiot). Here's a clearly unstable person and Simon goes after him like a snake snagging a bunny.

Even though he’s the guy who solves any tie votes this season, Simon’s not going to be able to bully his way over Paula Abdul any more. Nope. She’s got a girl in her corner, new judge Kara Dioguardi.

We saw a little of that in Tuesday’s premiere, although Simon still got the last say whenever he could grab Randy Jackson into his corner. That’s why Bikini Girl ended up getting a golden ticket to Hollywood. Orange skimpy aside, she wasn’t the worst singer we’ve ever heard, but she’s certainly more suited to be the cover girl of a biker mag than the next American Idol.

But just because she got the ticket, doesn’t mean she’ll get much further than a quick glance around the town.

New judge aside, there’s plenty of other changes in store for the show, which has added a few new elements like comparing the bad singers with the original tunes performed by artists who made the songs famous.

Cheeky.

FOX entertainment honcho Kevin Reilly says the network expects a little downturn in audience this year. But they say that every year. In fact, this show motor powers the entire FOX fleet, and putting Fringe in the plum post-Idol slot next week clearly means FOX believes they can propel their other promising series into higher ratings through an association with it.

On Tuesday, TV writers gathered in Los Angeles for the winter press tour chatted with new Idol judge Kara. Kara and Paula have been long-time buddies. Turns out Paula met Kara, “a stranger” she says, and invited the promising songwriter to come out and live with her in Los Angeles about 10 years ago. Kara says she stayed about a month, Paula says it was a year.

Kara, Paula reveals, has a selective memory. Like the fact that she doesn’t remember the time she was partying in New Orleans when a man grabbed her in the nether regions and then stole her purse.

Kara crumbled on stage as Paula spun that little tale out. Later, Kara simply said, “Yes, it happened. No, I didn’t really remember it because who would want to remember something like that happening to them?”

In a short interview after the panel, Kara did say that she wasn’t as outgoing in the first auditions in Arizona as she became later.

“You know, you’re new. You don’t want to step on toes, you don’t know what you should or shouldn’t say,” Kara said. “But I get better as I began to figure things out.”

Paula said they need a little girl power to combat Simon the bully. Perhaps there will be a little Simon slapping going on now that Paula has reinforcement.

And talking to Paula revealed that there are some major changes in store in the future. Besides the additional judge, there’s also a departure from the division of the sexes into six and six as the final dozen singers.

“I always thought we should go with the best singers, no matter who they are,’’ Abdul said. “So this year, we aren’t going to have to keep it to the six and six.”

That sounds good. But the jury’s still out on the whole added judge.

While a fourth judge could possibly cut into comment time, it might be interesting to see what happens when Simon has to deal with a little double-teaming.
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