In honor of Leah's (OvenMitt) birthday... another article I found....

In honor of Leah’s birthday, I thought I’d start a whole new round of conspiracy talk… I know she loves it and there’s some interesting stuff still left to ponder! Again at that evil website whatnottosing.com (seriously, it’ll suck you in and infuriate you all at the same time) I found myself convinced that not only was this season manipulated, but every other season was as well. I think this season was more obvious to the masses because it was more heavily manipulated than the others. I also believe that last season was heavily manipulated as well (hello, Paulagate?) but we weren’t pre-disposed to thinking manipulation. There are several reasons why but there are 2 that struck out at me (or haven’t been discussed already)

1. The Under the Bus Throwing: This season seemed to be the most obvious as far as the “bus throwing” was concerned. We saw it with the countless times Anoop was giving lack luster critiques, the critique on issues unrelated to singing (wardrobe, personality, and wives) and most importantly concerning our favorite; the theorized “reverse pshychology critiques” by Simon with Allison “I think you’re in trouble” after a brilliant performance and his “Amazing” critique for Matt (we all thought it was great, but apparently everyone else… not so much) But I found an interesting article concerning the past seasons. (http://www.whatnottosing.com/library/editorials.asp?id=49) Every year it seems a contestant gets to the final 3 who undoubtedly doesn’t deserve it or wasn’t “supposed” to (predetermined by TPTB). Jasmine Trias, Elliot, Syesha, Kris?. In each of these contestants cases they get to the round where an outside source (the judges, Clive Davis, and the guy who chose this year, I’ve already forgotten lol) chooses a song. This allows the producers to “throw these contestants under the bus”. Trias gets “All By Myself” a song so much bigger than her little Hawaiian heart could take (also already performed by 4th place finisher LaToya) that she was destined to fail. Syesha gets a song made famous by a movie with penguins in it (while the Davids get songs to sink their teeth in). Which leads me to Kris, furthering the thought that he was NEVER supposed to be there. Randy and Kara (the useless ones) give him a song that didn’t really suit him and was already suggested (only by the two of them no less) for another contestant (Matt) whose exponentially better than him on the piano. (and actually has a falsetto to carry off the song). He then gets criticized for not changing up a song he didn’t even choose for himself. What sets Kris apart from the other group is that he wasn’t eliminated the very next night.

2. Pre-Semi’s Exposure: (http://www.whatnottosing.com/library/editorials.asp?id=51) This is one of the more interesting articles I found on the sight. It’s widely known that the producers will heavily feature contestants they want to succeed on the show (Underwood, Daughtry, Archuleta, Gokey, MATT) and use some of the contestants as cannon fodder and feature them very little or if at all (Castro, Yamin, Iraheta, ALLEN) But the numbers behind this phenomenon are absolutely astounding. (one of the reasons why I love this site is that they go all out in their analysis and even do the statistics!) The article states that there have been roughly 56 contestants who have been pimped early and often by TPTB and 66 finalists who have been featured little if at all. (There is another group that was in the middle, but seeing as this year is it was one or the other, I’m throwing them out). The interesting parallel between the two groups is this: While the pimped contestants had a 51.8% approval rating, the non-pimped contestants had a 51% approval rating but yet they got eliminated about 2.5 times as quick as the pimped contestants. So why would this be if the approval ratings are the same? The pimped contestants are also 20% more likely to advance each week. The producers try to say that the pre-semis exposure doesn’t have much to do with success on the show- that singing is the ultimate decider. But what this stat tells me is that TPTB are full of bologna!

So what does this have to do with this season and Matt most importantly. Well, I honestly believe that like we’ve been saying Matt was doomed from the start. Last season set the precedent where the heavily pimped (Archie) was defeated by the not as much pimped Cook (I think only his audition was shown). With TPTB’s insistence on pimping contestants (I fully believe they were looking at a Lambert-Gokey-Giraud final 3… even Lil wasn’t pimped as much as Matt) people began to look at other options. ( I really feel like of the 3 Matt was the odd man out for viewers because he didn’t perform as well as Adam and didn’t have the backstory of Danny- there wasn’t much to pay attention to other than the pimping) They had people on board with Adam and Gokey and had switched the Lil love to Allison. This left Matt and Kris. The Pimped vs. the Unpimped. The contestant given all the opportunity vs. the underdog. In a season full of the pre-determined shouldn't it have been obvious who America was going to pick? This is why Kris defied all logic and precedence with other seasons and kept going further. He wasn’t supposed to make top 13. He wasn’t supposed to make top 3. After that crappy song choice and critique he wasn’t supposed to make the finale and he most certainly wasn’t supposed to win over the exalted Adam. We cry foul about this season and all the manipulation but if you really sit back and look at it they just continued to follow the pattern that had set since day 1.

So here’s my long winded nugget to ponder on. I know I keep bringing up all these conspiracies when the season is over, but this site is just blowing my mind. It’s actually turning me off from ever watching the show again.

I KNEW before I even opened this that this was going to be conspiracy related. It is for Leah, after all.... (that's Leah using her thesaurus while writing her Matt theories!)

BuffyBluth wrote:

I KNEW before I even opened this that this was going to be conspiracy related. It is for Leah, after all.... (that's Leah using her thesaurus while writing her Matt theories!)

Hahahaha.

That emoticon cracked me up.
This is gonna be the best gift ever for her

hahahah!
best birthday present ever for Leah!!

Congrats Ovenmitt! I had so much fun reading your theories back in AI forum intervention thread. That was some good time!!

hehe, I know she'll like it!! It's what we do best!
And I totally just got another thought in my brain! I swear they just pop in my head at the most random times... this one popped in my head while in a bar bathroom discussing the tv show "Roseanne"

Anyway it's about the much-discussed, much-maligned canceled finale duet. We've determined that the duet was canceled because it was the only performance without a celebrity. Ok, makes a little bit of sense if not kinda rude. But then I remembered hearing Matt say in an interview that the BMW singing was added that day and Santana had to teach him the song in his dressing room THAT DAY (which is soooo freakin amazingly cool! LOVE Santana!) Well, if that was added last minute why couldn't they just keep the duet? The duet was close to 2.5 minutes while the Santana BMW part (this includes guitar and Matt and not Smooth because I'm assuming that was already planned) was only 1.5 minutes... So what's 1 more minute? So my crazy style conspiracy brain thought what if this was TPTB's plan to get Matt a "solo" instead of singing with Scott. Maybe they knew him and Scott not being featured as much would cause people to wonder, thereby giving Matt more publicity in the end? It worked because immediately after the finale, the performance that was talked about most was one that didn't even happen! So in the end Matt got to work with a celebrity AND get mucho press.

Ok so I know that this is off the wall and far fetched even for me, but I swear this was what popped into my head in that damn bathroom! Ok.... discuss amongst yourselves....

pebbles87 wrote:

hehe, I know she'll like it!! It's what we do best!
And I totally just got another thought in my brain! I swear they just pop in my head at the most random times... this one popped in my head while in a bar bathroom discussing the tv show "Roseanne"

Anyway it's about the much-discussed, much-maligned canceled finale duet. We've determined that the duet was canceled because it was the only performance without a celebrity. Ok, makes a little bit of sense if not kinda rude. But then I remembered hearing Matt say in an interview that the BMW singing was added that day and Santana had to teach him the song in his dressing room THAT DAY (which is soooo freakin amazingly cool! LOVE Santana!) Well, if that was added last minute why couldn't they just keep the duet? The duet was close to 2.5 minutes while the Santana BMW part (this includes guitar and Matt and not Smooth because I'm assuming that was already planned) was only 1.5 minutes... So what's 1 more minute? So my crazy style conspiracy brain thought what if this was TPTB's plan to get Matt a "solo" instead of singing with Scott. Maybe they knew him and Scott not being featured as much would cause people to wonder, thereby giving Matt more publicity in the end? It worked because immediately after the finale, the performance that was talked about most was one that didn't even happen! So in the end Matt got to work with a celebrity AND get mucho press.

Ok so I know that this is off the wall and far fetched even for me, but I swear this was what popped into my head in that damn bathroom! Ok.... discuss amongst yourselves....

Girl, you are so good at this...
I never thought about that, but it makes sense. And we saw that a lot of people got upset about Matt being neglected. He definetely got a lot of attention because of that and his name was the topic of many heated discussions over the internet.
There's no such thing as bad press, right?

Okay, this is, no question, the best birthday present I received this year (uh, thanks for the heinous scarf, sister-in-law...); thanks, Pebbles! I was seriously tearing up, because now I have a place to rant and theorize endlessly without steering a thread off-topic (I am fully aware that I tend to do that: sorry, all!). AHHH, paradise! And thank's also, Pebbles, for introducing me to that mind-boggling website, whatnottosing.com. That place blows my mind. Listen, I need to do some stuff, but when I return, I will comment on Pebbles' brilliant "Matt finale controvery" theory, and perhaps concoct some more of my own! Thanks again, ladies!! Mwah!

Ok havent had time to read all this but what i fun thread. i love reading some pebbles and oventmitt

Yay! A place for all types of ramblings and deep analysis of the show.

About the duet thingie. I was thinking recently that maybe tptb considered the duet with Santana to be better for Matt because it focused on him. But then why didn't they make it bigger and leave the rest of the top 13 out of it. Maybe because Santana wasn't there specifically for one contestent, so they couldn't just have him do a duet with Matt only. I don't know if tptb would be smart enough to realize that cutting the duet would give Matt all types of buzz though. So I don't know if I can give them that type of credit. I'm still leaning towards them just not caring. But they must have cared a little bit about Matt to give him a last minute tiny duet with Santana when Scott got absolutely nothing.

I was thinking about a completely different reason why tptb could have put Adam in the bottom 2 with Matt when he was eliminated. What if they did it to be kind to Matt. They probably knew he was an emotional guy. They could have been very cruel with how they eliminated him just because they might have thought a more emotional reaction would have been good TV. What better way to prepare him to leave then to let him sit in the bottom 2 with Adam for a long time. Adam wasn't going anywhere (even though I guess there was a slight chance of a shocker elimination). It kind of gave Matt time to get used to leaving, so he could do one of the best elmination sing offs. Okay, I don't believe tptb would do that for a second cause I'm too much of a pessimiste but I thought I'd put the idea out there. It probably had more to do with making the Adam fans sweat it out, so they would be more motivated the next week.

You know what completely baffles me. Why did they make it a top 13 specifically for Anoop? He obviously wasn't a TCO. Personally, I think that doing that with Anoop is what really screwed up Matt's chances. The audience only usually will pick one wildcard to root for, and the rest of them end up crashing and burning. Clay was the chosen favorite Wildcard by the audience in season 2, and Kimberly Caldwell and the other two ended up struggling throughout the rest of the show. Tptb specifically got rid of the audience voting for a Wildcard, because I think they thought that caused unfair bias. Of course the audience would root for their specific chosen wildcard over the wildcards the judges picked. But then tptb were dumb enough to create a huge audience bias towards liking Anoop while making Matt invisible. Just look at the way Matt was let into the top 13. First Jasmine and Megan get told they are in, and they get a lot of focus with greeting the rest of the finalists and attempted high fives and stuff like that. And then Matt gets a two second "you're in" and then immediately the focus goes onto Anoop and the fact that he was special enough for them to create a top 13 just for him. Matt was treated like he was invisible while getting into the top 13 by tptb, so that's how he was percieved by the audience. Anoop got a lot of extra support because of this. I remember reading one of those EW insider articles about the top 13 results (or performance show?) that said that Anoop and Adam had the most signs in the audience. I think Anoop could easily have been the dark horse that won the competition based on the huge amount of support he got from the whole creation of the top 13. If he had just been a little more consistent...but he ended up floundering around with Beat It type performances that got him panned and slightly unmemorable good vocal R&B performances that didn't really make him stand out. And even while floundering around all those weeks he still would have been guaranteed a place in the top 5 if it wasn't for the Save. Being picked as a favorite wildcard by the audience can give anyone a huge boost. If tptb really were favoring Matt and were smart then they should have gone out of there way to make Matt the memorable wildcard. It wouldn't have been hard. They could have done one of three things:

1. Not chosen Jasmine and just let Matt, Anoop, and Megan into the top 12. Jasmine ended up going the next week anyways. I know tptb were trying to even out the numbers with the girls but by creating the top 13 they caused the exact same number bias against the girls that would have been there if Jasmine had been dumped for Anoop. So there was really no point. If they had done this then it would have taken away the focus off of Anoop, and then the wildcard who impressed people the most during the top 13 might have ended up with the giant wildcard dark horse extra votes. And Matt had the best chance of doing that since both Anoop and Megan started struggling immediately while Matt kept doing better and better. This probably would have been the best bet for tptb, because it would have let Matt get support based on his own talent. But tptb are so power hungry with trying to control everything that they couldn't put that type of faith in Matt that he could do it on his own I guess.

2. Kept the audience vote for the Wildcard (the judges pick two contestents and the audience picks one). Matt did good enough in the wildcard to get the audience vote on his own, and that would have guaranteed that the audience was behind him. No one could ever have accused him of being there just because of the judges ever again. The only competition he had during the wildcard was Anoop though. It probably would have been between both of them over who the audience picked. The judges could have just chosen Matt if he didn't make it with the audience vote anyways. And Anoop would probably have gotten the same huge audience boost if he was the audience pick that he got when the top 13 was created just for him. So Matt would have been in the same position, but at least he would have had a chance to try and be the audience pick.

3. Chose Matt as the guy that inspired them to create the top 13. That would have put a huge amount of focus on him. It wouldn't have guaranteed he got the same response that Anoop got though. Anoop had a certain type of personality that made you want to like him, and I don't know if the audience had gotten to know Matt enough to automatically embrace him if the top 13 was created just for him. Plus it also could have backfired and the audience could have used it against Matt the same way they seemed to use the Save and Wildcard against him throughout the show. So this one would be much harder to pull off.

IMO The three things that ruined Matt's chances were Coldplay (bad first impression to the audience), Anoop getting the Wildcard audience (so Matt went into the top 13 completely invisible), and Simon's giant ego... I think Simon telling Matt he was a frontrunner is what ruined Matt's momentum that he was building with his great performances more then anything else. Before that happened Matt wasn't disliked. Most people had him as a second or third or fourth favorite. But the second he was anointed as a frontrunner then it scared all the other frontrunners fans and pissed off the non-frontrunners who thought that there favorite should be there instead. That's when the animosity started. The bottom 2 thing didn't help, because Simon's giant ego was so hurt that Matt didn't get the votes that he had to lash out at Matt and say nobody liked him. And that's the mantra that the frontrunners fans and non-frontrunner fans used against Matt from that moment on. Simon's giant ego was also responsible for the Save not working like it should have, because Simon was more worried about being wrong then anything else so he had to make it clear that he didn't think Matt would ever win (because he was so in love with Adam that he didn't see anyone else winning). It's strange that the audience would completely reject Simon's comments whenever he said nice things about Matt, but the second Simon said something mean about Matt they would use that against him over and over.

Haha, I LOVE that everyone’s on board with the conspiracies!

Anyway, the whole wild card addition has kind of baffled me since they introduced it. Why do it in Season 2 and then completely abandon it for 5 seasons only to suddenly bring it back? If it wasn’t successful enough in season 2 to bring it back in season 3; why bring it back for season 8? It’s always confused me and I hope they go back to the top 24- 2 girls and guys get voted off each week format. It’s a fairer and more accurate way of getting the right top 12. (But when have TPTB ever been fair?)

I think one of the biggest problems this season was the lack of great talent. At that evil website, which I’m gonna call “Pebbles never come here because you’ll throw something at the computer”, they had a stat where the bottom half of the contestants (Jorge through Lil) had a total of 23 performances on the show and only 2 “scored” over 50- Lil and Alexis in MJ week. (For those of you who haven’t been over there, they scour through bloggers to see who liked each performance, the score is essentially the percentage of people who liked it). That’s a .086 batting average—aka TERRIBLE. That means there was a whole lotta crap mixed in with some good (of the other 6 contestants during that time period they had 42 performances- 31 of which were above 50—which is 74%) Had we been given 3 performances in the semis I’m sure we would have weeded out the crap.

MCH- your questions about creating the top 13 for Anoop are also what I’ve had on my brain. I’ve been thinking that they didn’t necessarily create it for Anoop specifically but they created a Top 13 because one of the people voted in by the people were not in their plans. I’ve said before I’m pretty convinced that they knew before they performed a single song a handful of contestants they wanted in the finals (Adam, Gokey, Anoop, Lil, Matt, Scott, Megan, Jasmine) and the other spots could be filled randomly. But when 4 of their chosen contestants didn’t make the cut they had to scramble and make something up. (I don’t for a second believe them when they say it was a last second decision--- bull crap) I in all honesty think they created the top 13 because of Kris. I don’t mean to keep picking on the little cockroach but I really think TPTB were confident in Matt’s ability to make the top 13 by vote. This was of course before the Viva La Vida debacle. But what I do share with you is the questions of why they chose Anoop for the surprise at the end. I never thought of it, but it did kind of overshadow Matt’s inclusion into the finals. (which sucked because of the 4 he performed the best and deserved it the most). I think it could have been for 2 reasons: 1) Matt and Anoop performed the best and they wanted to create suspense of “who’s gonna get in? oh I don’t know let’s find out?” or 2) They wanted people to casually forget Matt had to be put in by the judges so they wouldn’t hold it against him and get on the Matt train. Which if number 2 was the motivation hey guess what TPTB failed once again! Nothing shocking there!

I think this is gonna be my favorite thread!

Quote :

I don’t mean to keep picking on the little cockroach but I really think TPTB were confident in Matt’s ability to make the top 13 by vote. This was of course before the Viva La Vida debacle. But what I do share with you is the questions of why they chose Anoop for the surprise at the end. I never thought of it, but it did kind of overshadow Matt’s inclusion into the finals. (which sucked because of the 4 he performed the best and deserved it the most).

What I'm also wondering is why did tptb allow the Coldplay debacle to happen? I know they couldn't order Matt to do something else. But you think they could have tried harder to get him through. Maybe given him the pimp spot instead of Adam, and tried to give him okay reviews. Or tried really hard to talk him out of that song choice. But instead they put him in the number two position like they expected him to be kicked off, and treated him like it was a given he wouldn't make it through during the critiques and during the results show. They either did it to teach him a lesson to not do those types of songs again (because they knew they could wildcard him) or they wanted him a wildcard to begin with. I'm actually leaning towards them wanting him a wildcard, because Simon specifically said that one of the wildcards could end up the winner. So maybe they were hoping that just by putting Matt through as a wildcard that he could end up a Clay Aiken and get that type of huge wildcard support. They haven't done the Wildcard in so long that maybe tptb just didn't think the whole wildcard thing through properly.

mch wrote:

What I'm also wondering is why did tptb allow the Coldplay debacle to happen? I know they couldn't order Matt to do something else. But you think they could have tried harder to get him through. Maybe given him the pimp spot instead of Adam, and tried to give him okay reviews. Or tried really hard to talk him out of that song choice. But instead they put him in the number two position like they expected him to be kicked off, and treated him like it was a given he wouldn't make it through during the critiques and during the results show. They either did it to teach him a lesson to not do those types of songs again (because they knew they could wildcard him) or they wanted him a wildcard to begin with. I'm actually leaning towards them wanting him a wildcard, because Simon specifically said that one of the wildcards could end up the winner. So maybe they were hoping that just by putting Matt through as a wildcard that he could end up a Clay Aiken and get that type of huge wildcard support. They haven't done the Wildcard in so long that maybe tptb just didn't think the whole wildcard thing through properly.

Yeah, I'm thinking it probably took them a boat load to get VLV cleared for the show because nobody has ever done Coldplay on the show before. Maybe they thought him singing the song would work out. I can see that because I remember when he started singing I said "wow, what a fresh and unique song to sing on this show" and I instantly perked up. (And I had honestly no interest in Matt at that point- it was the 1st time I had seen him... don't watch Hollywood rounds). Maybe they thought if he would have sang it properly it could've been big.

But you make a good point about wanting him to be a wildcard. I think by Simon saying "maybe a wildcard could win this year" they had to know that Matt had a chance at winning (because the other 3... not so much). That way if Matt had made it pretty far, the wild card addition would be justified because one of them did so well. But alas, like every other change this year.... they failed miserably... And is it just me or was Matt the only one who felt backlash for being a wild card? Even before he got saved, people would only complain that Matt got in by the judges....

Okay, I love my mom, but I found myself practically shoving her out the door so I could get on the computer and type away about these crazy conspiracies. That's actually pretty sad (I love you, Mom!), but she DOES know how analytical I am. She raised me, after all!

Pebbles, you kind of opened Pandora's Box for me all over again about this finale thing. I can't believe the thought had never occured to me: Perhaps Matt wasn't thrown under the bus at all, it just appeared that way on the surface. I think I toyed with the possibility that Matt may have been in on that cut performance, maybe even negociated a diminished appearance in the finale for future deals to be secured with 19E. But when I think about that, I actually doubt that Matt would wheel and deal like that, much less even be approached about bartering in that manner. It is entirely feasible, however, that TPTB may have orchestrated that fiasco on their own to generate buzz, or even as their own short-bus method of being "tricky", perpetuate that aura of mystery around what happened and why to force fans to "stay tuned" to what would happen with Matt next. I think that either they are still deciding on whether or not to keep Matt on their roster, and will base that decision on how well he is received during the tour. Which brings me to another thought...

It could just be that TPTB needed some extra gimmicks in order to entice more people to the tour. I don't know how tickets are selling; I've heard some venues are sold out, others still have lots of availability. And I am aware that MANY fans are going for the sacred Top 4 spectacle. That's a given. But maybe the finale shenanigans were a way to parlay those viewers who felt shafted about not seeing Scatt's duet into buying a ticket in hopes that the lost performance would become reality on tour. Yes, this is farfatched, but since when did theories in general need to be rational, much less those discussing the possible motivations of the Idol machine? I know I wasn't really planning on the tour (because I would really only be going for 1/10th of the performers anyway) until I heard that rehearsal audio. After that, I began envisioning the two pianos nestled together, Scatt battling it out on stage, pounding out amazing riffs and singing with the energy of the crowd igniting their performance. Now THAT sounds like something I'd want to see! Besides, we already know there will be an Adam/Allison duet, Danny Gokey church service and Kris. Oh, heaven help us, we'll have to endure Kris.

That reminds me of another finale explanation. I have been racking my brain trying to reconcile Matt getting a 22-second, sitting-in-the-pit, afterthought type of piddly-ass cameo, while the likes of Lil, Megan (Joy) Corkrey, and Sarver were pampered with full celebrity(not last-minute, thrown-together slop acts, either!)duets. Yeah, I know, the duets without celebrities were the first on the chopping block, so Scatt got the ax. Yeah....I don't think so. First of all, we can all pretty much agree by the dimwitted handling of the whole Billy Joel fiasco that he was probably never even contacted, much less scheduled to perform. PLUS, Scott is the only one who is mentioned when that performance comes up. Nobody ever said anything about a Scott/Billy Joel/MATT performance, it was just sort of assumed through the connection of the Scatt rehearsal clip and the dust-up surrounding the entire situation. Matt only hinted via Twitter that he was going to do something never before done on the Idol stage, nothing about a celebrity. Hmm....I'm starting to think that the whole Billy Joel angle was just to pacify Scott, and that the "rehearsal" was recorded just to be leaked and further speculation. Why would they have record of it if they didn't really want that info made available to the public? They would have never given it to Scott in that case. Matt didn't make a stink and post that audio clip! Maybe TPTB were banking on the fact that Scott would get enraged and leak it, doing their dirty work for him. Notice how there was no repremand for Scott letting that cat out of the bag, it just kind of faded away without fanfare? Hmm....and did anyone remember Matt making a, I believe, Facebook comment asking his fans what they thought of the song? Funny you should mention that, Matty. Hmm.....just sayin'.

Oh, I forgot where I was going with the Lil/Megan/Sarver thing. Maybe they were just getting one last hurrah, a grand, final farewell for the few fans who enjoyed them, to incite water-cooler talk about how horrific they were, or more simply, for ratings. Maybe there's a thought that not only will those contestants not bring in droves of fans for the tour, but also that they will not perform spectacularly anyway, and may not have that big of roles in the tour. Because, let's face it, with the way all those people were treated on the show, namely by Simon, there's no way the producers are going to exault them for the finale. Especially if they weren't that popular with the fans! That would be silly, and a little TOO precious, now wouldn't it? It almost seems as if those celeb pairings were made as a huge joke anyway. I mean, Queen Latifah is great, but did we need four minutes of her and Lil's lame vamping and wailing? Was the bluegrass community hotly anticipating Steve Martin on the banjo? Did we even know before then that Steve Martin PLAYED the banjo? I frankly thought that duet would be some sort of novelty, Adam Sandler-style farce instead of a legitimate song. Turns out the "legitimate song" was laughable enough on it's own.

So, yeah, I'm all riled up about that finale again, and there's nothing left for me to do about it but wring my hands, type up crazy hypotheses about the what and why, and, of course, go to the concert and find out for sure if i was at all correct in my assumptions. Thanks, Idol, for infecting my brain and probably forcing out other pieces of far more valueable information! Haha!

ok reading all of this got me a little dizzy, so i need some time to think about all of this.
anywhoo Thanx for all the conspiracy theories pebbles and ovenmitt, they really have me addicted to the computer screens.
and happy birthday to Ovenmitt!!

Great posts! I'm not sure we will ever be able to figure out what went wrong with that finale, but these are all great theories. I just know I get really aggravated when I think about how we were cheated out of a spotlight for Matt. My thing is, is if they had to cut the duet and he had to learn the Santana thing last minute, then why not let him have a little more time, let the other 13 join in if they had to, but please don't let Jorge have a solo spot....yuck. I think Matt should have been front and center and have the solos in the song - oh and by the way, Kris has no jive in him at all, he looked so funny trying to dance up there singing "Smooth".It was laughable really! Oh boy, I Just get so bend out of shape when I think about the finale.