American Idol 18: Will Sunday’s performance show be live?

After a couple of weeks showing some retrospective specials, American Idol 18 is finally coming on the air this weekend! So what will the actual series look like? It’s not going to be identical to the same show that you’ve seen over the years, though you probably assumed that.

For more American Idol video discussion, check out some of our contestant rankings entering the top 20 below! Once you do that, remember to also subscribe to CarterMatt on YouTube and then view our full show playlist. We’ll have other news soon…

It is true that the entirely of this weekend’s show will be done remotely, with all of the contestants performing from their homes. They will all have the same lighting and technology, mostly as a means to ensure that things are as fair as humanly possible. Speaking to Yahoo! Music, executive producer Trish Kinane confirmed that the upcoming performance shows will be live-to-tape, meaning that they won’t be airing across the country while the performances are happening. That is to accommodate for any technical problems that could happen with this format, which is completely understandable all things considered. Yet, she did confirm that the finale will be happening live, at least in terms of Ryan Seacrest handing down the results:

“So while the [performance] shows are being recorded, because didn’t want to risk a kid’s performance or anything with the internet going down, for the finale we have to go live for the results … So pray to the internet gods and to all our wonderful engineers that the endeavor works!”

No doubt that these performance shows are going to feel strange, but we give the producers of American Idol a good bit of credit for continuing to work through this.

One thing that is apparent from the top 20 spotlight video below — Sophia Wackerman is no longer using that as her last name. Instead, she’s adopting the stage name of “Sophia James,” which at least makes some sense given that it bounces off the tongue a little bit earlier.

What do you want to see when it comes to the American Idol top 20?

Be sure to share right now in the comments below! Meanwhile, be sure to stick around to get some more insight when it comes to the series. (Photo: ABC.)

This article was written by Jessica Carter. Be sure to follow her on Twitter.