Can Kara DioGuardi Save American Idol?

Last night American Idol premiered with a new judge and a kinder, gentler audition round.

Rather than watching head cases massacre Etta James’ “At Last,” Idol decided to focus on people who can actually, Gasp, sing and a judge who sincerely wants to, whaaaa?; critique and judge.

Where’s the fun in that?

Instead of car-wreck antics from the contestants, most of the premiere drama came from the Idol regulars.

The most uncomfortable “Oh no they didn’t” moment of the night wasn’t an angry tone deaf bumpkin telling Simon where to shove his comments or gushing to Paula about what an amazing artist she is; it was Ryan Seacrest trying to high five a blind dude, a moment we still can’t believe made it to air.

No Idol audition round would be complete without a war of words, but this time it was fought between feisty new judge Kara and freshly crowned famewhore “Bikini Girl,” a chick so desperate for attention she showed up in 1/8 of a real outfit and kissed Seacrest (something he was obviously super uncomfortable with) while Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” played.

(The producers have it out for Seacrest this year!)

Bikini Girl sang a heavily plagiarized version of Mariah Carey’s “Vision of Love” that Kara, in the immortal words of Randy Jackson, wasn’t feeling. So new girl sang it with some stank on it and made Bikini Girl look like the thing she is, a rank amateur.

In the end, America was reminded that sex always wins over talent as Randy and Simon (with his newly acquired, extra special mine-is-bigger-than-yours vote) put her through to Hollywood despite Paula and Kara’s strong disagreement. Kara gave Bikini Girl these words of wisdom as she strutted out the door, “Next time, come naked.”

Any judge who’s able to outsing a contestant and willing to lay the smack down at the same time is someone we’re tuning in to watch.

As long as she doesn’t give any blind guy high-fives, we say Kara may just be the thing that has us tuning in for an entire Idol season (instead of just the last two episodes).