American Idol's New Rule

They had the "new rule" announced last night on American Idol. It is that the judges in the course of the season can "save" a person who receives the lowest number of votes that week if they feel he or she should have another shot. Then the next week they would say goodbye to two. And there would be no more saves the next week because the save can only be once in the season, anytime before the final five.

The weird thing is they showed Chris Daughtry and hinted that it would "save" someone like him who perhaps should have gone further in the competition. But he was in the final 4, so in his case it wouldn't have saved him.

Even if it would have saved him, he still might not have won. We all know Chris Daughtry is the greatest thing in the world (basically) now, but not everyone thought that at the time. Or he would've kept going on the show. I remember some criticism of him at the time as sounding the same every week, like he had one style and that was it. Personally I liked him, but I liked Taylor Hicks better.

The ones who were there were Taylor, Katharine McPhee, Elliott Yamin, and Chris. Taylor definitely had fan votes coming in from somewhere, since he was never in the bottom three ... until, of course, there were only three left. Elliott had some good things going on and has done pretty well since, better than I thought he would. Taylor's audience doesn't seem to be a big CD buying group, or downloaders. I've got his new one ordered. It must not be popular enough to be at the store because they didn't have it yesterday. Katharine came in second. As for my taste, she would have gone home in Chris' place, then Elliott, then have the final between Chris and Taylor.

I think it's a good rule to have, the new one. But you knew, since they can only do it once, they weren't going to waste it on Jorge or Jasmine. At this point things have to shake out and you can barely say they didn't have a good shot to show the goods. Only if it had been unbelievable, like Adam Lambert with the lowest number of votes. That would have been a disaster. They would've used it then.

Exciting stuff, huh? Better than politics really. It's superficial enough you can keep track of all the angles and you're not dealing with quite as many dishonest people. I hope.