‘American Idol XIII’ video: Everyone (apparently) loves the new season!

Look at how bright and cheery some of the new “American Idol” promos are! Clearly, Fox went into January with a plan, and that was to try and convince all of the viewing public that this new season was going to be entirely about love, hugs, and getting away from the mess that was season 12.

So far, we give them a good ol’ round of applause for trying to make sure that they hit all of the right notes (pun intended). As a TV critic, it’s nice to think that viewers do care about what they see online; and to an extent, they do. Word of mouth was a big reason why shows like “Breaking Bad” and “Girls” first became hits, but the difference there was that nobody was really hearing about them before the critics. Everyone already knows about what “American Idol” is about, and so we don’t really know if the goal of this latest promo (quotes from popular websites) is really going to do too much to sway viewers.

Instead, the biggest selling points for the new season are as follows:

1. The judges – Not so much the star power, but that they all seem to like each other.

2. The warm fuzzies – There’s no drama, or constant sense like “The X Factor” that the dramatic music is going to burst through the screen and devour you.

3. The contestants – This is a show for Middle America, and you see more undiscovered folks from there than on any other program. Also, many of the best stories are here, and there is that track record that still matters to some extent (though maybe not as much as it once did).

While we’ve been critical of the show many times over, to us January 15 cannot come soon enough. We’re ready to dive in and see what this new “American Idol” is about, and try to analyze all of its odds and ends.