ABC/Eric McCandless
ABC’s American Idol finished up audition episodes and will be moving on to the next round of the competition, the grueling Hollywood Week, when judges Katy Perry, Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie will send many of the contestants home.
Hollywood Week for season 4 of American Idol will include two episodes. The first is the genre challenge, where the contestants each choose a genre and a song from that genre in order to impress the judges. The next episode will be the duet challenge where two singers will be paired up in order to perform a duet.
The Hollywood Week episodes air on Sunday, March 21 and Monday, March 22, officially bringing the show back to a two-day-a-week format for the rest of the season.
Hollywood Week is Followed by the Final Judgment Round
Hollywood Week is followed by the final judgment round, which has traditionally been filmed in some exotic location; last season, all of the contestants went to Hawaii for the week and performed with a band in front of a live audience.
This year, it’s unlikely that that kind of trip was possible. The judges will still make the decisions about who moves on to the top 24 after seeing the contestants perform with a band, however.
The Showstopper/Final Judgment round of the competition airs on March 28 and March 29.
The contestants who move on were chosen by American Idol judges Katy Perry, Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie before the viewers get to start choosing who moves on in the competition.
It’s likely that a 25th spot is available and that it will be chosen by viewers. It’s tradition for the judges to pick two people that they can’t decide on and have viewers vote to see who gets to move on to the next round of the competition following the Showstopper/Final Judgement round.
What Does the ‘American Idol’ Schedule Look Like?
This season, there are more episodes scheduled than there have been previously, according to spoilers site MJs Big Blog and Futon Critic. It’s likely that the extra episodes are results shows, which will allow contestants to have separate performance and result shows once again.
Here’s what the schedule for the rest of the season looks like, according to the two sites:
- Sunday, March 21: Hollywood Week Genre Challenge
- Monday, March 22: Hollywood Week Duets Challenge
- Sunday, March 28: Showstopper/Final Judgment Part One
- Monday March 29: Showstopper/Final Judgment Part Two
- Sunday, April 4
- Monday, April 5
- Sunday, April 11
- Monday, April 12
- Sunday, April 18
- Monday, April 19
- Monday, April 26
- Sunday, May 2
- Monday, May 3
- Sunday, May 9
- Monday, May 10
- Sunday, May 16
- Monday, May 17
- Sunday, May 23
At the time of writing, the season finale of American Idol is scheduled for Sunday, May 23, though it’s possible that will change at some point.
One thing that likely won’t change is the precautions the show is taking for COVID-19 safety reasons.
Luke Bryan recently opened up to People about the hardest part of filming the show this time around.
“The interesting thing is just trying to navigate all of the new rules of COVID-19,” Bryan said. “One tricky thing is a lot of times during the audition process, contestants will get very, very emotional and it will be an emotional situation for them.”
He added, “The fact that me and Lionel and Katy can’t walk out there and do the human element – hug and show support and love, is very, very tough.”
American Idol airs on Sundays and Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
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