Idol Chatter & Voice Views

FOX on Friday afternoon announced that this year’s season finale of American Idol will air Thursday, May 16.

The final two-hour competition show will be aired the evening before.

Which means something is up with the Season 12 schedule.

The finals begin on Wednesday, March 13, with the first elimination show set for March 14.

Count Thursdays between then and the season finale and you come up with 10, one more than necessary to whittle a field of 10 finalists down to a single American Idol.

The possibilities …

* Maybe Idol won’t have a double elimination the week after the judges use their only save this season.

* Maybe there’s a scheduling conflict that will keep the show from airing one week between March and the May finale (which would be an Idol first).

* Maybe they’ve been fibbing to us with their pledge that there won’t be a wild card this year and the finals will be expanded beyond 10 contestants.

Next Thursday’s one-and-one-half hour show should raise suspicions that Idol has some sort of surprise up its sleeve as well.

I mean, we’ll watch the girls perform for two hours on Tuesday, then the guys for two hours on Wednesday.

It should not take 90 minutes just to tell us who advanced on Thursday night.

If it does, shame on Idol.

If that’s the plan, they’re begging folks to tune out and DVR the entire Thursday episode.