Idol Chatter & Voice Views

So, Adam Lambert finally got his critiques Wednesday night.

Of course, that was 22 hours after viewer voting had ended for the weekly Idol results show.

And, wow, Idol sure lucked out that the last singer Tuesday night was Adam as opposed to — well, let’s say Anoop Desai or Scott MacIntyre.

In case you, like me, were watching live and didn’t notice, Idol’s Tuesday night show ran late. Most folks who recorded the show via DVR or TiVo likely missed all of Adam’s performance and Simon’s standing ovation in response to it.

Fellow York Dispatch blogger Andy Shaw tipped me off to the problem. I routinely record Idol on DVR just in case I miss something while blogging live during the show or want to double check something later.

Sure enough, when I checked the recorded copy, Adam’s performance was entirely missing. My DVR allows a 2-4-minute cushion in case a show runs long, and all I got was the very beginning of the featurette looking back at Adam’s childhood.

Those watching live saw Ryan Seacrest start rushing the show along after Adam performed. He allowed only Simon to respond to Adam’s rendition of “Mad World.”

Here’s the statement FOX released about the problem: “AMERICAN IDOL is a live performance show and as with all live programming, there are unpredictable elements that affect running time. While producers attempted to end the show on time, last night featured eight contestant performances and was the first hour-long performance show of the season. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.”

Adam being Adam, there was no real jeopardy of him landing in the bottom three, let alone being ousted from Idol. That’s with or without the only standing ovation I can recall from Idol’s crankiest judge.

But just imagine the fallout if Anoop Desai or Scott MacIntyre had been performing in that final spot.

Scott got booted from Idol Wednesday; Anoop was the second lowest vote-getter. And Ryan told us during Wednesday’s broadcast that about 30,000 votes separated the two.

In that scenario, could a missed performance have affected the outcome?

Probably. Idol virtually begs viewers to record the show. I mean, what a great time-saver. Watch it back later, fast-forwarding through all the filler. Then vote for your favorite.

On Tuesday, Idol — the singing competition — featured 12 minutes of singing in a 60-minute show Tuesday. Those 12 minutes of singing, and Simon’s commentary, would be about all you’d need to see.

But it’s a little tough to watch the show that way and develop a fair opinion of who deserves your vote if one of the performances is missing.

Now, here’s a question worth pondering: Would it be easier to finish the show on time if there weren’t four judges reviewing each performance as opposed to the three we used to have?