After every episode, we assess how American Idol's guest judges have fared. Towards the end, w''ll see if they did Paula Abdul's old slot justice. Or the show justice. Or Simon Cowell's soon-to-be-vacated slot justice. You get the idea.

Name: Mary J. Blige
Best known as: Grammy-winning R&B artist
Audition city: Atlanta

How did she judge? First, I'm just glad we saw much more of Mary last night than of Posh the night before. She knows what she's talking about and she's not afraid to speak her mind. Remember Holly the "human guitar"? She said an outright no because she didn't understand her. Her head's on the complete package (like Posh, only not as, uhh, pretentious) and she gets it.

Did she get along with the judges? Oh, definitely. She was much more animated than Posh Spice the night before. That's what I actually liked about Mary's judging stint: she really was into the judging, not very conscious about keeping herself in check, and just having fun with it.

Nasty or nice? I think she was mostly nice, although she's intimidating, considering that she's Mary J. freaking Blige! Or maybe it's because she was laughing around a lot, freaking out in a good way. Although maybe the moment when she laughed at guy-who-almost-died-thrice Jesse's performance was particularly bad--because I thought she was crying, remembering her early days as a singer.

The Paula Abdul rating: 7/10
The Simon Cowell rating: 7/10

Anything else? If only she wasn't so busy, she would've been a good replacement for Paula. Then again, even if her presence was very strong last night, I cannot imagine her being part of the whole judging panel dynamic... maybe just yet.


The report cards so far:
Victoria Beckham





(Image courtesy of Fox)