American Idol is really going all out trying to get me to watch this season. I remember back when the show first started and some guys from a board I used to post out started votefortheworst.com. Born from a group of people (*cough*) who enjoy spoiling reality shows in general and Survivor in particular, the board was created for the sole purpose of screwing with American Idol.  Perhaps their biggest accomplishment was keeping Sanjaya around for so long.  Some people believe this site was responsible for Idol’s format change to add a judges save component to override the tomfoolery when necessary. You know, just in case a whole bunch of people keep voting for the Sanjayalike contestants like this year’s  Jermaine and Heejun. Heejun was clearly on the show for the comedy aspect making jokes about P.Diddy Puffy Daddy Sean Jean being drunk at the mentor session. And hey, clearly there is nothing funny about  P.Diddy Puffy Daddy Sean Jean. The judges didn’t seem particularly fond of Heejun.

Anyway…VFTW is back at it this season and is pretty gleeful that they managed to get Jessica Sanchez in the bottom three (allegedly). Idol hasn’t had a really successful winner since Carrie Underwood in season five and they are tired of letting America get it wrong. Which brings us to last night.  Two big production things occurred behind the scenes this week. First of all, it’s VERY clear that Idol wants Jessica Sanchez to win this year. She’s pretty and young and has a good voice. She’s marketable to the teen/young adult market. But how to make that happen? Keeping reading for the production manipulations…

Well, first of all, the judges have got to use their save or the season won’t end on the right date. And what better way to freak everyone out than to use it on their favorite claiming she was voted off. But they didn’t stop there. They ACTUALLY CALLED HARVEY LEVIN AT TMZ and told him that they were going to have a judges save so that everyone would tune in to watch. Was this really a good idea? There are were people who still believed that the judges don’t know who is going home each week. Now that cat is out of the bag. From the moment the show opened and Ryan asked Randy if he was nervous about the elimination we knew what was coming. Later, Stephen Tyler blurts out that the judges will definitely use their save before the at risk contestant was even identified. Bless his heart.

And use it they did. Jessica Sanchez was clearly mortified when, before she got three notes out of her song, all three judges bumrushed the stage. J-Lo begins repeatedly screaming at her to go sit down and Randy lectures the audience to VOTE FOR THE BEST!  Jessica was horrified and poor Holly, who should have gone home last night, was praying for the floor to open up and swallow her. It was a ridiculous blunder that exposed the whole show as a fraud. It makes me wonder if, despite every talk show discussing Idol this morning in a windfall of free advertising, the whole thing backfired. Instead of maintaining the usual facade, which would have caused kids all over the country to vote more religiously for Jessica, they were straight up told that Jessica, Joshua and Elise were the ones they should be voting for. Is this going to cause a backlash against those contestants and leave us with Atlanta local Phillip in the finals with Colton? Probably. Way to go, Idol.