Wednesday, March 28, 2007

American Idol: Top 10 results

My thoughts on the booted contestant at NJ.com, but you can discuss him/her here.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Eh, good riddance. I sort of wanted to like him at first - he reminded me of Harvey Danger's Sean Nelson, only not as smart or talented, and 50 pounds heavier - but he wasn't smart or talented enough to like.

Where's the Lost thread? Turns out Nikki and Paolo are cylons!!!

Undercover Black Man said...

This Sanjaya thing is getting out of hand. But why do the producers insist on feeding into it? The set-up with Crying Girl last week, Seacrest's callback to the pony-hawk tonight... In the context of a TV show, all that stuff is building up Sanjaya as a star of the season... the one everybody's talking about...

The producers don't have to sabotage him... but goodness gracious, they don't have to hype him up either.

Anonymous said...

I haven't scrutinized Fox's site (I'm still dialup), so forgive me if this is common knowledge. Are the full results of the weekly vote available? I know Sanjaya escaped bottom three, but how high did he place? Was he, perhaps, number one? This would account for Fox capitulating to the inevitable and starting to make the show All About Him.

I don't think there are enough teary 12 year old girls or enough snarky cynical adults to account for Sanjaya's votes. But perhaps these two demographics combined ...

eyebrown

Alan Sepinwall said...

They never make the full results public, though Seacrest will occasionally reveal the top vote-getter (or getters) during the results show.

Mainly, I think it's to maintain suspense and keep the audience invested in voting like crazy. As I understand it, Clay, Carrie and Taylor were all badly outpolling the field every week of their respective seasons, and if the producers had revealed that, people who didn't like those three might have stopped watching -- or, at least, voting. (And there wouldn't have been that weird Ruben upset victory in season two.)w

Alan Sepinwall said...

And UBM, the producers feed into it because controversy is good for "Idol," always has been. Even if Sanjaya outlasts LaKisha and Jordin, it will get people talking about the show, and that's what they want. The only real downside is if he wins the whole thing. In general, no matters how much controversy there is in a season, the best or second-best contestant usually wins (last year maybe excepted, and Taylor was light-years better than Sanjaya), so all the garment-rending about how Cannon Fodder A outlasted Cannon Fodder B doesn't matter. But what if the show actually has to promote Sanjaya?

In the meantime, though, he's harmless. Annoying, but harmless.

K J Gillenwater said...

Don't worry, people, Sanjaya will not win. This happens every year. A really bad contestant makes very far in the competition, everyone panics. Those who want a somewhat talented person to win starts voting. As the numbers narrow down to 4 or 5, the votes for the 'good' singers get concentrated together.

Now, Sanjaya might make it farther than any bad contestant before him, but you can blame that on Howard Stern and Dialidol. He ain't gonna win.

As for Chris Sligh, I'm never sad to see people get voted off who would never win. And Chris wasn't good enough to win. Maybe he left earlier than he should have, but why keep him around an extra couple of weeks, if he'd be gone anyway?

K J Gillenwater said...

Oh, yeah, and I thought the Gwen Stefani performance was horribly bad lip-synching. I had to fast-forward through it.

If all the contestants sing live, I think it is really stupid to put a recording artist on there who does this professionally every day and not have her sing live, too.

Anonymous said...

I have heard people are voting for Sanjaya now because Simon said he would quit if he won.

Unknown said...

Meet Daniel Kublbock, the German Sanjaya, who came in 3rd on Deutscheland's Superstar several years back:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9PQorQLk4ss

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cAATQpoTvLY&mode=related&search=

and

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IpA0kYlHGZk&mode=related&search=