No need to get into the entire season’s schedule now. Why? It might change and you aren’t going to put a copy on your fridge door anyway.

Starting at 8 p.m. Wednesday (2-hour show with 200 commercials!) and throughout January we get five audition shows and then a “The Road To Hollywood” segment. The real good news is that of those six shows, two are only an hour long. Let’s have a drumroll for Common Sense on Audience Attention Span.

After four Hollywood shows, we move on to the “Candice Glover Special” show (Feb. 18th) which, mercifully will be only an hour long. Kind of interested to see the ratings on this segment. They are all set to jazz the evening up with the release of her new album (Music Speaks), her advice to the contestants (that ought to be interesting) and (hold the hammering noise pls) the unveiling of a new Idol stage! After all last season’s ratings were miserable and Candice was the winner on that miserable run.

Semifinals start Feb. 19th; finals commence March 12.

The grand finale is set for May 21st in New York City at Madison Square Gahhhhhhden. If they can hold the Super Bowl in (or near) why not the AI finale? Question here is will the balloon drop be apple-shaped balloons?

OK, here is the schedule:

Wednesday: 8-10 p.m. Boston/Austin auditions

Thursday: 8-10 p.m. Austin/San Francisco auditions

Jan. 22: 8-10 p.m. Detroit and Salt Lake City auditions

Jan. 23: 8-9 p.m. Atlanta auditions

Jan. 29: 8-10 p.m. Omaha, Neb. auditions

Jan. 30: 8-9 p.m. The Road to Hollywood