Saving Big Mike: An Idol Conspiracy?

We’re not usually quick to allege “conspiracy,” but something didn’t smell completely right about last night’s “boot-off” show of American Idol.  As you probably know, Ryan Seacrest announced that the Bottom Three would be from the males, and he then divided the six remaining guys into two groups.  One of the groups contained Lee, Casey, and Tim; the other consisted of Mike, Andrew, and Aaron.

Shannon and I were very surprised because the obvious Bottom Three seemed to be Aaron, Tim, and Andrew, based on performace and on the “Dial Idol” scores.  In case you don’t know, Dial Idol is a website that tracks busy signals for each of the phone numbers associated with the Idol contestants.  It’s been remarkably accurate in predicting the person who gets kicked off.  For this week, Dial Idol showed Aaron, Tim, and Andrew as the 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th vote getters, respectively.  Meanwhile, Mike was 4^th.  Of course, there’s a margin for error, but the fact is that Aaron, Tim, and Andrew had unquestionably the worst three performances, while Mike’s was pretty good.

When Seacrest announced that Mike, Andrew, and Aaron were the bottom three, we felt like something was up.  Sure enough, Mike ended up being the one “voted off,” and then he “sang for his life,” as the judges have one “save” this year, whereby they can rescue a contestant who America has unfairly voted off the show.  The judges then announced that they were unanimous in their decision to save Mike.

We don’t think Mike was actually voted off.  Instead, this has the stink of the American Idol producers scheming in order to garner more attention for him.  After all, they’ve been featuring him plenty during the backstage segments, and Mike had a prominent role in the opening act last night.  Despite great vocals and an ebullient personality, Mike had been middle-of-the-pack in terms of votes in the past weeks.  What better way to boost his appeal than to make viewers think that he might be gone from the show?

After last night’s antics, he’ll be the center of attention this week.  Plus, with Mike now firmly entrenched in the role of the underdog, people will likely be backing him more than ever.

If we’re right, then the producers seem to have devised a brilliant plan for increasing Mike’s exposure and popularity.  Then again, such a conspiracy spoils the competition a bit, as you can never be sure whether someone’s meddling with the vote counting.  It’ll be hard to tell whether we’re right, but we’re guessing that Mike keeps on advancing in the coming weeks.