Caterwaulling vs the WGWG

Thank goodness THAT'S over. This has been one draggy-assed season if I ever saw one. I certainly hope next year shows some more promise. Either that or they just end this sucker. For the second week straight, I'm going to focus on the numbers and such and not bother talking about the performances. If you don't know who I'm rooting for by now.... I had a 3 mini-squwee night and panties were tossed. Just not those leather or sparkly ones. The plain old cotton ones.

If you 're looking for some fairly funny reviews please check out Top 2 Sing: Theme: "Who Cares? Just Vote for Phillip!" by Insane and Final 2 Perform by smarterthanpickler, both from the VFTW site. While you're at it, don't forget to read down through the comments if you have time. I so wish I had half brains these two have.

Some other reviews you may wanna check out:
'American Idol': Tonight's the Night by Kelly Marino at MTV News
American Idol Finale- S11 by Unknown author at www.picsofcelebrities.net (not really a review, but definitely an interesting read)
Singer vs Guitar Slinger on 'Idol' Finale by Ken Barnes via MSN TV


Like I said earlier, I'm not going to break down the songs. I will however throw a couple thoughts at you and let you decide where to go from there.

#1, in the past 10 seasons, of those that sang in the first spot of the night, only 4 won the show. All 4 of them were guys. More times than not, the one who sings in the pimp spot is your winner.

#2, conspiracy theorists believe that the show is cursed. It's called the Kristy Lee Cook curse, named after that blonde contestant in Season 7. For more about this theory, you can read this entry at MJ's Blog. It's the first one listed. If the curse is still in effect, we'll have another WGWG winner. Why? I know his name has none of the qualifications, but he's from LEEsburg, Georgia. If that's not enough there's a theory of double letters later in her entry. With  2 sets of LLs ( 4 of a kind, baby!) that should beat a set of SSes, don't ya think?

#3 speaking more of the conspiracy theorists, there's one that states that the contestant with the first initial latest in the alphabet wins. This has held true every single year, even including the year of the Davids as Cookie's last initial shows up later in the alphabet than Archie's. There are more on MJ's blog if you feel like going through them all.

Now let's take a moment and look at the previous years' Maps. Since the Winner/ Loser Maps are always an inversion of the other, I'm just going to deal with the Winner Maps.

In Season 6, they threw us a twist and did an Idol Gives Back or some sort and  decided to not eliminate a contestant that week. As such, the one with the worst performance that week ended up lingering. This eventually knocked the then front runner out of the competition in 3rd place and we ended up with a Jordin vs Blake final instead of the Blake vs Melinda one everyone expected. Jordin then went on to grab a 41 state win over Blake's mere 8 state win. Total landslide. 

Season 7 brought us the Battle of the Davids. Although TPTB tried to force the Liplicker down our throats, the  WGWG very quietly grabbed our attention from day one, kept it, and then proceeded to walk away with the contest. Cookie took a 40 state win and only lost 9 to Archie. Again, a total landslide.

Season 8 brought us the killer battle of Adam vs Kris. By the end of this season, many learned an appreciation for both in the Top 2. Adam had an awesome showing and received a 28 state win over Kris's 19. A 9 state difference. Everyone thought this was a total win for the man with the rocker wail. We were wrong.  This season saw WGWG #2 crowned as winner.

In Season 9, we had a Lee vs Crystal showdown. Crystal has a 22 state win with 18 in the loss column and  ended up with a 4 on the Maps. Lee  had a -4, yet he managed to win.

Season 10 saw Scotty vs Lauren. This was a tight race with Lauren  having a 19 state win and 17 state loss. This gave her a 2 total while Scotty ended up with a -2. Yet again, the one with the fewest states won.

This year's battle, Phillip vs Jessica. He had 21 state win and a 14 state loss giving him a 7 total. Since the  Maps invert on the final 2, we know that her totals came to a -7.

Since the Maps aren't particularly helpful, let's see what the Charts did. Thankfully, DI kept all the previous ones back as far as Season 4. I'd be really interested to see the results on the first 3 seasons but I suspect we'd find much the same as we see here.

Even with the 2 very tight races, the winner always seems to be in the top spot.

Looky looky at who's in the first list spot, our own WGWG #5!

A note found on the DI site. They're hedging their bets still. If they simply followed the trend from their own site, they'd call it.

Poll from MJ's site. That top one is "Who SHOULD Win American Idol 11?" As you can see they feel Jessica  is the more deserving. The poll "Who will win?" on Rickey's site reflects MJ's "Who SHOULD win?" poll for the most part.

This last week, the odds site I visit has changed their bets from listing them by contestant to a simple "Will Phillip Phillip Win?" bet. At last check on the 22nd, the odds were -416 yes and +349 no. This means I would have needed to drop $416 to break even if he wins. However, if I put $100 down and bet against him (voting no) and Jessica won... I'd come out $349 ahead.


One last thing... check this link out. It'll take you to a meter on the USA Today site. It was kinda rough the first few weeks, but from week 6 and going forward they were on the mark.