I meant to write this last night, but AOL was being uncooperative.
Here's the thing: I expect American Idol ratings to go down, now that Sanjaya has been voted off.
This is not because I think Sanjaya has a huge fan base who will all leave in disgust after their star has been booted. American Idol (like many other reality shows) works on a model where people get kicked off regularly, and this generally does not impact their ratings in a negative manner.
But I do think that a lot of people have been watching just waiting for Sanjaya to be booted, and now that he's gone, the show lacks a certain ...
Let me put it this way. I didn't watch American Idol 3. And I didn't watch because I happened to catch Fantasia's audition, and Simon said something like, "You're the first person I've seen who doesn't need this show. You'd be a star without it." And I thought, "Well, ok, she's gonna win. That's the end of that."
The same thing is going on with Melinda. Oh sure, at first, they started to make it look like it'd be a competition between Melinda and Lakisha -- but (after a sterling beginning) Lakisha has wavered quite a bit. (I even noticed last week they were trying to build up Jordin -- so that she'd be a possible legitimate contender in the audience's mind.) Let's face it, Melinda overwhelming the competition week after week until such time as she is crowned the winner isn't exactly exciting television.
But what is exciting television -- if we can't be moved by wondering who is going to win -- is wondering how long someone who should be kicked off sticks around. (Kind of like why I kept tuning in to the first Survivor, week after week, waiting for them to kick Richard off.) "Will Sanjaya go this week?" is good television. It might be annoying to the people who think this is a true singing competition and wish Sanjaya wasn't there -- but I bet the producers were secretly digging it, seeing as it was actually making people tune in and care about "American Idol" in what is otherwise a boring season.
As much as Simon was overjoyed to see him go -- I bet he won't be as when next week's ratings come out.
1 comment:
I've never seen Idle. Never.
I've only been sent clips of the awful Asian character from years ago and junk. I know there are three judges, one is Evil Simon and one is semi-drunk Paula "I'm desperate for work people" Abdul.
I've written most everywhere I can encouraging anyone to vote for Sanvagina. I truly had hopes he's stick around long enough to screw things up. Just because I wanted the show to be over. Now that he didn't? I care as little as I did before. And yes, it wasn't my idea, it came from Howard Stern.
Go ahead. Call me lame or whatever. So what's with this blogging so much lately? A new love in your life gave you ants in the pants (or finger tips) or something?
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