Twists, turns, and rumours galore

Well, yesterday was something of an eventful day for the Idols bunch. From phone exchange problems to casually dropped rumors, to "surprise" endings to the results show, there seemed to be more questions than answers.

First, there was The Burg's column, which I note quickly vanished from the front page, to be replaced by the previous column on the Idols history. The column in general was snipy and angry sounding - from attacks on some unidentified columnist (Frank?) who apparently offended the Burg, to a rather scandalous hint at nasty goings-on behind the stage, blame for which he placed squarely at the feet of Karin. I dropped a quick note to Idols PR to get the scoop, and was reassured that there was nothing to report, and that it was a moment of tension that had been over-exaggerated. The article on the official website's front page seems to bear this out: Karin overheard and misinterpreted something Deidre had said, resulting in a few heated words; Karin the apparently realized her misunderstanding and apologized. They both state that there are no hard feelings, and that all is well between them. Hardly the huge event that it was being made out to be. My biggest problem with this is a columnist whose name is somewhat synonymous with the Idols - and whose words are often taken for gospel by some - made potentially damaging remarks about a contestant without providing any basis for his statements. I'm not even questioning the veracity of what he said; maybe he was there and witnessed it first-hand. But to only give a tiny portion of the story without providing enough information to let readers decide for themselves comes across as intentionally slanted against one particular contestant. Again, maybe that's not the way it was intended, but that's certainly the way it came across to me.

Then there's the results show. While it isn't surprising that the producers made the decision they did, I am a little surprised at the way it was handled. The decision was made in the afternoon to not have an elimination next week; yet voting lines remained open, allowing many people to continue to cast what might essentially be useless votes. For people who vote rabidly for their favorite (I hear tell of people casting over a thousand votes each week for their prized contestant!), this has a definite, and often significant financial implication. They say that it's possible they'll combine this week's votes into next week's but I don't see how that can be feasible either. If the votes weren't valid enough this week, why should they count for next week? Rather scrap the whole week, and start from fresh next week. If it's possible, the most sensible thing to do would be to discount the cost of votes next week, thereby remedying the fact that a lot of people paid for votes that won't count. That said, I wholeheartedly support the decision not to have an elimination this week, in the light of the technical problems, as forging ahead with the elimination would surely have brought an immediate backlash of people saying the voting was fixed. They say the numbers were close enough to imply that the technical problems could have pushed the votes either way, but judging by the fact that the exchange problems were isolated to KwaZulu Natal, I'd imagine that even if they all had gone through, they would only have widened the gap between Ayanda and Deidre (since I feel that they were likely the bottom 2 contestants). At any rate, it's only a temporary reprieve, and next week brings a double elimination. Either way, pretending like this week's Live Spectacular never happened is fine by me... I'd be happy to forget it.