Farewell to Sanjaya Malakar

APRIL 19, 2007: Nooooooo!!! This can't be true! Why is this happening to me!? Oh. Excuse my little drama queen moment here, but I thought it would be only fitting given the significance of the event we have all been waiting for - the conclusion of the Sanjaya Malakar soap opera. Simon Cowell can sleep tight again. Or can he?

In yet another unnecessarily drawn out Wednesday night results show, FOX's "American Idol" let the most infamous contestant go and thus ended the most-talked about string of ingenious hairstyles and god-awful performances all wrapped up in a cute and shiny candy wrapper of showmanship.

Joining Sanjaya in the bottom 3 last night were Lakisha Jones, who sure knows how to belt out those tunes but has been plagued with inconsistency in quality of her performance and occasional poor song choice, and Blake Lewis whom the judges hated to see in the bottom 3, but whose cocky on-stage presence may have put off some of the fans (isn't HE the male contestant Sundance referred to who thinks he has already won the competition?)

As much as I initially hated Sanjaya I have actually grown to admire his courage to take risks and, despite obvious lack of talent, go out there and reinvent himself week after week. He may be a horrible singer, but he sure is one heck of an entertainer.

Sanjaya is off the show, so what is there to watch now? Simon Cowell has admitted this year's talent mix is the worst ever. To be fair, there are some great singers among them, but now that the whole "will he survive or not?" craze is over, won't the show become a tad too tedious?

I will be very curious to see what happens to the ratings next week (the show has been averaging about 26 million viewers in recent weeks.) Will they go up again or has Sanjaya hurt the show for good? On the other hand, could they possibly sink any further if all those Sanjaya fans stop watching the show?

One thing is for sure, it is a challenge to come up with great Nielsen-smashing stuff once you reveal why Mary-Alice killed herself. That is why the top-6 contestants better up the ante in the coming weeks, or the viewers will continue to tune out.

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VIDEO: Sanjaya's Top-10 List

Former "American Idol" contestant Sanjaya Malakar continued his publicity blitzkrieg and appeared on the David Letterman show last night presenting the top-10 list of things he learned on "Idol". Here's the video.

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Sanjayamania Has Only Begun

On Saturday night he attended the White House Correspondents' Association dinner and posed with model Petra Nemcova at the Bloomberg after-party. He has also appeared on Leno and Regis and Kelly and he is reading the top-10 list on Letterman tonight. Getting voted off was just the beginning.

The most searched male celebrity on Yahoo! is reportedly being swamped with offers totaling $15 million in value, including a guest appearance on the hit Disney tween TV show "Hannah Montana" and KFC offering him a lifetime supply of its chicken bowl dinner if he wears a bowl-style hairdo on national television.

And you thought he'd go away if you didn't vote for him.

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Sanjaya Survives, Hayley Axed

Although I accurately predicted that Chris, Hayley and Phil would make it to this week's bottom 3, I honestly believed the straight male vote would keep the leg-flashing contestant in the competition. Luckily I was wrong.

Hayley Scarnato of San Antonio whom a sarcastic Simon advised to wear as little clothing as possible in order to survive following her rendition of "Turn the Beat Around" on Tuesday night's program was sent packing tonight.

That means Sanjaya Malakar once again survives and goes one step closer to that coveted "American Idol" title just as Howard Stern, Perez Hilton, votefortheworst.com and many other fake fans have been campaigning for.

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Have You Been Sanjayad?

The national fascination with Sanjaya Malakar seems to have reached ridiculous proportions as everyone is wondering whether the infamous "American Idol" contestant can actually win the competition. What I want to know is whether Sanjaya is only an embarrassingly poor choice of the judges gone terribly wrong or have we all been Sanjayad?

The judges are the ones who made the decision to invite the Federal Way, Washington native Malakar into the top-24 taking a pass at a number of other talented kids (a girl from New York who could both rock out and sing opera comes to mind.)

Everybody is talking about Sanjayas changing hairstyles, but it is really the people behind the scenes who help Sanjaya in his attempts to top the previous week's look and put him on stage in revolving incarnations.

Don't get me even started on the crying girl. Even if her tears were genuine and she was not planted by the network, the producers and the host made the choice to zoom into her sobbing face and invite her to the stage.

Finally, Simon Cowell has recently made pompous statements that he would quit his judging duties on the reality show if the hairstyle-swapping kid wins the competition. If he wants to see the boy voted off, why make more noise with such theatrics?

You may think FOX has nothing to do with the latest "American Idol" sensation. After all, it hardly delivered the ratings gold. Last Tuesday's performance show was the lowest rated this season.

But even the biggest blockbusters have to think of ways to stay on top. A little shot in the arm does wonders from time to time. It seems however, we have all been Sanjayad this time around. And that would include the over-confident FOX.

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