So The Show is back with a (mostly) new set of judges, as it continues to evolve and tries to keep more or less (mostly less) up with the times. Any panel of anything that features Nicki Minaj, Keith Urban and Mariah Carey is probably worth at least a little attention, so sure enough, I started checking out the new season.

The good thing is that the judges are interesting. The bad thing is that the judges are the most interesting thing on the show.

Minaj is a hilarious riot. I’d heard little of her music, for which I am the antithesis of the target audience, but she displays an artistic genius on The Show that I really respect. I’ve heard some of Urban, and he is so relaxed and funny on television that it makes me want to see him in concert. And Carey has lost the hard New York accent that she once had; you can tell that she’s seen it all and done it all, and she’s pretty much not fazed by the silliness around her.

The contestants are another matter. None of them really want to make me stop and say, “Yeah!” and I doubt I’ll remember any of them very long (quick: Who finished third on The Show last year?). The best singers have an old-school or church-y style that dooms them in this era; there’s no one here I’d call particularly fresh. But I’ll probably keep watching, as much out of loyalty as anything else, because you ever know when someone you underestimated is suddenly going to get his/her act together and show you something you did not expect.