Wednesday, March 11, 2009

More Hints About the "New Rule"

I can’t help but notice how many “Idol” sites are just going about their usual business, predicting who will go home tonight. But nothing about tonight is going to be business as usual.

That’s why I went a little bit skimpy on my analysis last night, because honestly, until we hear what this “big surprise” is, I have no idea how this thing’s going to work.

We did get a little bit of a hint this morning on Ryan Seacrest’s radio show when he talked to Executive Producer Ken Warwick.

Warwick said that there will be a “new rule” to help with “a problem that’s been around since season one.” He went on to say that they tested the rule in another country to see if it worked. Warwick then casually mentioned the country was France.

Doesn’t he know there are people scouring the Internet to search on every word he says? Not me, but thankfully, there are people who do so I don’t have to…

According to Wikipedia, on the last season of the French version of “Idol,” the judges “were eligible to exercise a veto power on one eliminated contestant at any given point of the competition and spare them from elimination.” When this one-time only veto was used (in the first week), no one went home.

I really hope that Warwick wasn’t playing with us and this is the “big surprise” and not a sing-off as I feared. In this scenario, the judges don’t have nearly as much power as they would in a sing-off situation and it could prevent talented singers from exiting the competition too early. Plus, it might be fun to see how long the judges would wait to use their veto, since they could only do it once.

With the scenario I pitched last night of a bottom four of Anoop, Jorge, Megan and Jasmine, would the judges use their veto so early to save their golden girl, Megan? I’m thinking not…

Let me just clarify that I have no idea if this is what’s going to happen or not, but it’s as good of a guess as any at this point. I guess we’ll all just have to stay tuned.

And isn’t that the point of all this to begin with?...

You can hear a clip of Ryan’s interview here.