My DSL service went out Thursday night, and returned this evening, just in time for Idol. Still catching up on Internet stuff...
Adam and Kris were easily the best of the bunch tonight, I thought. Predictions go below!
So this is what I'm thinking. Correct predictions that are invalidated by the Judges' Save are worth half a point each. The following week, assuming that they don't bother saying which of the two people eliminated got more votes, a prediction of either one for either of the two weeks in question is worth three-quarters of a point.
That is... going with alphabetical order, supposing that Adam comes in 9th and the judges save him, you'd get .5 points for every week you put him in 9th place. If, the following week, Allison and Anoop were eliminated, you'd get .75 points for every week you had either Allison or Anoop in either 8th or 9th place.
It's not a perfect solution, but it does keep the same number of points in the system, and I don't have any better ideas.
Works?
Motown week!
Personally, I'd rank Lil on top, followed by Adam, Danny, and Allison. Everybody else is potentially at risk. And I'm gonna try to sleep now. Predictions go below!
Y'know, I still have to figure out how to handle the Judge's Save in the pool. There are two questions: how to deal with a prediction that would have been correct if the judges hadn't intervened, and how to deal with the following week, in which two people are eliminated. My gut feeling is that both ought to involve some fraction of a point, but I don't know what fraction.
Anyway, on to the results. Who's getting cut from the tour?
Danny is safe. Lil is safe.
"Welcome to the tour!" Ryan tells them. Hmm. I wonder how the tour would handle a Judges' Save this week.
Anoop is safe.
On to Allison and Michael.
Ryan asks Paula which she thinks is in the bottom three. She doesn't think anybody deserves to go, but when pressed, she thinks Allison is more likely.
She's right. Allison is in the bottom three, and takes a long walk to the other side of the stage. Michael sits down a bit too soon; Ryan tells him to join Allison.
Scott is safe. Megan is safe. Matt is safe. Kris is safe.
Alexis and Adam stand up. Randy ascribes the "Ring of Fire" cover to Jeff Buckley; will have to look into that. Anyway, Alexis is in the bottom three.
Allison is safe.
Down to Michael and Alexis. Simon allows that the judges would consider saving one of them, but doesn't say which.
Michael is safe. Barring judges' intervention, Alexis is out.
Simon says Alexis is the one they were thinking of saving, and that it now comes down to her final performance. She starts singing, the judges huddle. This song's desperation is a bit too on the nose under the circumstances, making it painful to sit through.
The judges conclude in a "kinda unanimous" decision that it was good, but not good enough. Alexis is through.
Mo Pie and TeKay each pick up a point; the rest of us had Alexis in the top 5.
It's country week! Or "Grand Ole Opry week" this year. Who'll crash and burn this time?
Well, Adam won me over by choosing the Universal Hall Pass version of "Ring of Fire," and performing it well. (I'm amazed he even knew that cover existed. Clearly nobody else on the show did...)
Otherwise, Scott was good; so was Matt; and I'm impressed Megan could perform at all if she had the flu.
Nobody was actively bad, but several weren't that interesting this week. Kris and Lil come to mind, or rather don't. Michael's song wasn't musically interesting enough, Allison was kinda dreary, and Danny just wasn't very good.
Kris and Lil are probably closest to the hot seat, though.
My internal clock has been working its way around the day, the upshot being that I was asleep by the time the results show got underway. But this was fine, because my brother's TiFaux was recording it, and I'd be able to watch it via Slingbox once I woke up.
Or so went the theory. Turns out that the TiFaux settings got wiped a couple of weeks ago, and the instructions to snag all American Idol episodes had gotten lost in the process. Hmmph.
Well, on to Idol Chatter to see what happened...
Turns out the speculation was right. This year's twist is that one time between now and the Top Five, the judges can veto any one elimination, saving that contestant for another week. In such a case, two people will be eliminated the following week.
Anyway, Jasmine and Jorge are gone. (Clearly I was wrong about Jorge's fanbase. Guess it didn't have time to solidify yet.)
This year's pool spreadsheet is now up. Mo Pie picks up two points; the rest of us pick up one apiece!
Over on mjsbigblog—which I did not know existed until Rickey.org linked to this, but which looks like an excellent source of Idol information—MJ's posted an interview with Idol producer Ken Warwick on Ryan Seacrest's radio show. Apparently, the new rule to be announced tonight was previously tried on the French version of the show.
According to Wikipedia, the past season of Nouvelle Star featured a rule in which the judges could veto any one elimination in the season, giving that contestant another shot.
In the case of the French version, the season appears to have been extended an additional week to make room for this. My understanding is that the American season schedule is pretty much set in stone, and has no such leeway. So either saving one contestant will mean saying goodbye to the person with the second-lowest number of votes or, more likely, the week following such a reprieve will have two eliminations.
But we'll find out tonight, I suppose.
(The producers seem determined to make things difficult for those of us trying to run pools... I'll figure out how to handle this once I know what we're dealing with.)
It's Michael Jackson week!
As I've been saying for years, I hate single-artist weeks... but if you're going to do them, I suppose this is a good choice.
Two people will be eliminated this week! Which is pretty much what I expected.
...and I'm working on four hours of sleep, which is not helping.
For those interested, I'm now live-twittering American Idol at @idolannex, thus getting it out of my system without annoying everybody who follows my primary Twitter account.
Loved Anoop, admittedly not because his singing was all that. He's just fun. And, yes, Adam was the best of the night from a vocal standpoint.
Apparently they're going to be announcing a rule change tomorrow night that messes with the show's core concept. It's implied that it'll involve the judges having some input on who gets to stay... but that may be an intentionally misleading implication. I fear change.
At this point, no idea who's gonna be dropped. I'll post my pool predictions in a comment after I think it through.
Welcome to the sixth annual Shmuel's Soapbox American Idol Annex pool! Come one, come all! Tell your friends!
The rules are essentially the same as last year's, and the year before that, and the year before that—in fact, I'm cutting and pasting wholesale—and they go as follows:
The upshot is that, every week, you're making x predictions, where x=the number of contestants remaining. For example, suppose that this week you were to rank the contestants as follows:
1. Adam
2. Alexis
3. Allison
4. Anoop
5. Danny
6. Jasmine
7. Jorge
8. Kris
9. Lil
10. Matt
11. Megan
12. Michael
12. Scott
Putting aside the fact that there are better ways of making your predictions than going by alphabetical order, this would mean that if either Scott or Michael were to leave the show this week, thus coming in at #12 overall, you would get a point for having predicted that. Similarly, if Megan were to leave the show next week, thus coming in at #11 overall, you would get a point for that. This would similarly apply to the remaining 10 predictions, up to getting a point if Adam turned out to be the American Idol at the end of the season.
Next week, you'd get to do the same thing again, that time ranking the eleven remaining contestants to make eleven bets. And so on until the final week, with the final two predictions. This allows for a mixture of short-term and long-term planning: you can pick up points either way, and you can have a lot of points riding on the results of the final few weeks. In fact, 22 points could be at stake between the Idol and the first runner-up, with 11 weeks of predictions riding on each.
Last year very much came down to a showdown between those banking on David Cook for weeks, and those who did the same for David Archuleta; in the past, people have won both by predicting the ultimate winner from the very beginning and sticking to it, and by hedging their bets and picking up points here and there over the weeks.
More on the implications of this can be found in last year's rules, and last year's spreadsheet may or may not help you get the hang of things.
Good luck!
So my assumption is that the judges will put through at most one guy. Probably they'll do exactly one, as selecting three girls would be a bit too blatant in balancing the demographics. Still, the performances themselves can matter. Let's see if I turn out to be right, after the cut!
I don't have much to say about the performances. Tatiana was as good a singer as she's annoying and fake in general, but choosing the same song as last time was a mistake. And fan favorite Anoop could've picked a better song as well...
Anyway, the judges have made their choices!
Randy is sad to inform Jasmine... that she'll be seeing a lot of them. She's made the finals!
Kara compliments Ricky, but he hasn't made it.
Paula offers both Megan and Tatiana encouragement, and says that they've decided to go with Megan. (And she then goes on to console Tatiana.)
One spot left, with four contestants remaining. Results after the break!
Now in overtime (sorry, people TiVo-ing the show!)
Simon informs Jesse that she's out, though she nearly made it. (There is momentary confusion as Jesse has trouble parsing "you nearly did" though Simon's accent.)
Paula tells Von that he didn't make it.
Down to Matt and Anoop. Simon tells Matt he's through. Sorry, Anoop.
Addressing Anoop on behalf of all the judges, Simon announces... that they're going to expand to a Top 13. Anoop is in.
Holy crap.
...did Ryan just say the wild cards would be tomorrow night?
[checks TV listings]
Wow. They are.
More (including this week's results and the wild card contenders) after the jump!
Group song: "Hot and Cold."
(Do they have all the guys sitting down specifically to work around Scott? That's... actually kinda cool. Though they can't do that every week, if he makes it through.)
Audition during the commercial break: I don't like this feature, but I did like that somebody auditioned using the theme to The Jeffersons.
Recap.
...strictly speaking, Puerto Rico isn't a country, but Jorge's point is taken.
Lil is in the top 12.
Arianna, Taylor, Alex, Kendall, and Scott: one of these five is going through... after the commercial break. Probably has to be one of the boys, to preserve suspense for the final pick. More specifically, probably Scott.
Arianna is out; Taylor is out; Alex is out. Between Kendall and Scott... and Scott is in the top 12.
(If Jorge gets through, I get the trifecta; if Felicia somehow manages it, my votes count! And if it's Ju'not, at least Ed will be happy.)
Nathaniel and Kristen: are both doomed. Yup.
Felicia and Von: are also out. "For now." We'll get the wild card picks in a bit.
So that leaves us with Ju'not vs. Jorge. And the person going through... we'll find out... [long pause] ...right now. Cute, Ryan. Jorge is in!
Jorge thanks everyone in Spanish, I think.
On to the wild card picks!
A bunch of potential wild card picks are present, along with those left from this week. Selections from both after the break.
Given that the finals start next week, I gather that the judges are gonna be making the wild card picks themselves. And probably taking the chance to balance out the demographics. (Though tonight's helped in that regard.)
The judges are picking eight people to come back one more time tomorrow night. The choices were a consensus of all the judges, but they're announcing them one by one.
Randy calls back Von Smith.
Kara brings back Jasmine Murray.
Paula calls up Ricky Braddy.
Simon selects Megan Corkrey. (Simon says she was in the first show, but it was actually the second.)
Randy names Tatiana Del Toro, saying the judges agonized over this one for a long time. Eeeep. (And emotional Tatiana is back!)
Kara calls on Matt Giraud.
Paula calls up Jess Langseth, in what she says was a last-minute change.
Simon brings back Anoop Desai.
Stay tuned for the final picks tomorrow night!
Reactions after the cut, as usual.
Group Two was definitely the most interesting of the bunch. Nobody really grabbed me this week.
My bottom three would be Alex, Arianna, and Nathaniel, who respectively butchered "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues," "The Winner Takes It All," and "I Would Do Anything for Love."
I kinda liked Felicia, Kendall, and Kristen, despite some flaws. I'll probably give Felicia a couple of half-hearted votes. (And I really liked her outfit.)
I'm going to predict that Lil will make it through. Probably Jorge as well, with a boost from the Latino and Puerto Rican populations. I'm waffling on whether Scott will make it on the strength of sympathy for the blind guy; his actual performance wasn't strong enough to warrant it. But what the heck; every other week so far has been male-dominated.