Paulagate

Sites that follow American Idol are abuzz this morning with Paula Abdul's gaffe critiquing both of Jason Castro's performances when he had only done one. She tried to cover it up, after Randy, Simon and Ryan finally made it clear to her that only one song had been sung, by saying she must have been reading from her David Cook notes by accident. Of course, what she said with regards to Jason's second performance didn't match her David C critique at all, ao it was a pretty lame excuse.

There are two dominant theories as to what happened.

The first says that Paula's (and perhaps Randy's and Simon's as well) notes were taken at rehearsals/warmups. This would mean that their judging comments aren't actually based on the television performance at all, but something that took place before the show started.

The second says that Paula read off notes that were provided by the producers. This theory would basically reveal that the show is not as spontaneous as was originally thought, that it is actually a totally scripted event.

I think there's a third possibility.

Portions of the results show are taped in advance, other parts are live. Maybe the same holds true with the performance show and the portion where the judges were asked to comment before the second performance actually came at the end of the taping, then edited into its normal slot.

Then why wouldn't the producers edit out Paula's flub, you ask.

There are many comments to articles stating that Paula has to go, that her gaffe finally revealed what the show is all about and the producers have to axe her to save their behinds.

I disagree. The Paula trainwreck is one of the reasons people watch the show, no matter how much they bemoan her vanilla spaciness. The Simon acidity is another reason.

Paula gave the blogosphere a lot to talk about today. That kind of PR cannot be bought.

Then again, maybe there will be a public backlash when it is finally realized that the fantasy is no longer being stroked, that it has been tweaked a bit. And don't we hate it when our fantasies turn out to be just that...

a fantasy.