Jennifer Lopez & Harry Connick Jr. Joining Keith Urban On 'American Idol' Panel

Despite being one of the worst kept secrets in the show's history, Jennifer Lopez's return to the 'American Idol' was finally confirmed today (September 3rd), just as the panel was scheduled to begin filming for the show's thirteenth season in Boston.

Her return, which reportedly cost FOX an estimated 17.5 million, will see her join forces with Keith Urban, who proved to be nothing more than a pretty judge last year, and last-minute signee Harry Connick, Jr., who has mentored on the show to mostly positive reviews in 2009 and earlier this year. Randy Jackson is also (unfortunately) set to replace the spot-on dose of honesty that was Jimmy Iovine as the in-house mentor.

While the choices are uninspired and safe, if the panel has chemistry then they can easy top last year's disaster that featured two singers (Mariah Carey and Urban) who had no clue what the word 'judge' meant, one redundant veteran (Jackson) and one outspoken rapper (Nicki Minaj), who actually delivered good feedback, but was someone, the audience simply wasn't willing to give a fair chance. Listen to Lopez talk about why she decided to rejoin the panel after taking a season off beneath:

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Write by: RC - Tuesday, September 3, 2013