American Idol has been pretty quiet this week regarding what we can expect following Jessica Sanchez’s elimination and subsequent save last Thursday. We’ve seen a lot of discussion on whether or not we’ll see a double elimination this week when the Season 11 Top 7 finalists take the stage for the second time, so let’s see what we know so far and can expect this week on American Idol 2012.
So far we haven’t heard anything from Nigel Lythgoe, production, Ryan Seacrest, etc. on how many eliminations will be coming up this time around. However, on Thursday night, FOX and American Idol released their PR memo with a few details on the upcoming week which noted that viewers could tune in on Thursday (April 19th) to “find out which Top Seven finalist is sent home.” Now that’s clearly a singular “finalist” in their press release which would hint at a single elimination, but that’s just a PR memo probably using some template with fill-in-the-blanks for a quick release. I’m not ready to go by what that brief announcement says, so let’s look at what’s happened in the past.
The Judges’ Save was first introduced in Season 8 when Matt Giraud was “saved” during the Top 7 week. The following week there were two eliminations to keep things on schedule. During Season 9, Michael Lynche was saved during Top 9 week. Sure enough, a double elimination followed the previous week’s elimination-void. Season 10 delivered a save of Casey Abrams during the Top 11 week (too early, huh?) and guess what? Double elimination the next week.
With all that in mind I think it’s safe to say we’ll most likely see a double elimination (see Update below) this Thursday on American Idol 2012, but how does that look for Jessica Sanchez, last week’s recipient of the Judges’ Save? Interestingly, in all three previous seasons of a Judges’ Save the finalists “saved” has never been eliminated the following week. I’m expecting that to be a repeat event this time around. Jessica’s fans will have a fire lit under their feet to get out the vote and save their favorite and will go that extra mile to make sure she’s safe this time around.
Of course, patterns are just patterns and nothing is certain until it happens. Right now I’m expecting a double elimination (see Update below) coupled with Jessica Sanchez’s safety this Thursday, but we’ll soon know more. What do you think will happen?
Update: Excellent comments down below pointing out Jermaine Jones’ disqualification earlier in the season could negate the need for a double elimination to keep the schedule going. Very true! We’ll soon know for sure either way.
Update 2: The question arises, if Jones’ disqualification required the use of the Judges’ Save to avoid ending the season a week early, then is it more of a possibility that last week’s “shocking!” results show was staged to avoid a “meh, sure we’ll use the save this week because we have to” moment during the Top 5?