thales

But THAT'S no fun...

I enjoy the show as a political exercise first and a talent show second. I say "a political exercise" because there are voting blocks that have fluid elements each week. I firmly believe that the people that voted last week for Nikko Smith did so because his performance was awful but they wanted to keep him around because they liked him. As a result votes were likely pulled off of those who were deemed "safe".

Likewise, Lindsey Cardinale got voted off because she didn't get similar support peeled off of others because of a weak personality (and a relative lack of airtime during the taped shows - if Simon thinks that's not a factor in early voting he is a huge fucking dumbass).

The best thing about the show is trying to determine the consequences when someone with a dedicated voting block gets voted off. Where does that person's votes go to in subsequent ballots? (This becomes more interesting when you get down to 5 or less people). It will likely be incredibly interesting this year since the styles between the final four will possibly be significantly different from each other.

For example (and this is an unlikely example), if you have Anwar, Bo, Carrie and Nadia as the final four...and Anwar gets voted off, where do his votes go? Probably Nadia. If Bo was the top vote getter with four contestants, then he likely drops to second place with three.

Now if Nadia gets voted off in the same scenario, I would bet her votes get split between Anwar and Carrie. Bo may go from top vote getter with four contestants to third out of three.

That said, based on last night's performances, my predictions were crap. Makalah has got to go. She just plain cannot sing. She shouldn't have been in the semis, much less the finals. God I hate that she's still there. But I still believe her voting bloc is strong enough to keep her in this thing (and it will be helped if Simon says something tonight like "you should have been voted off based on last night's performance, you had a second chance and you blew it"). That will really help Mikalah get the votes out.

Based on last night's performances, who should have been in the bottom three? Makalah, Nadia Turner and Either Anthony Federov or Scott Savol. I have no clue who would have gone.

That everyone gets a second chance tonight blows the whole thing wide open. If Vonzell and Constantine kill again tonight (I thought they both sounded fantastic), they'll be safe. If Scott Savol rebounds from last night's performance, hell be safe. If Nadia Turner still sucks, she will definitely be in the bottom three...hell I bet she goes bottom three regardless (she doesn't understand that the reason Cindy Lauper was so popular was not her style but the fact that the woman has a great set of pipes on her).

My new bottom three prediction: Nadia Turner, Jessica Sierra (Total Eclipse of the Heart...what an awful song) and Nikko. Nadia replaces the Constantine/Vonzell possibility in my original prediction. I still think Jessica gets the boot. In order to survive, you have to have a personality that people can relate to or desire to emulate. She has neither.