Fallen Idol: Epic Love Story or Brilliant Publicity Stunt?

Lately, I've been rallying behind love. So I must admit that I watched Fallen Idol from that perspective. But I did find a place to draw a line in the sand and walk away to stand behind the innocent.

In 50 words or less: Paula Abdul uses her charms and powers as a judge to cut her a stallion out of the corral and groom him to take first place. Long story short, to quote Barry Manilow, they fell in love. Well, he fell in love. When he was dropped like a ton of rotting meat (tm Big Orange) by American Idol on a technicality, he was also dropped thusly by Paula.

Until he leaked the story, he heard nothing from her. Now, all of a sudden, she's on his ass like underoos, promising record deals if he keeps quiet. To Corey, it's now about revenge. He has produced an album that John Cusak would proudly seranade some brainy waif about how much Paula has wrecked his life.

The question remains, did Paula ever love him? If she did, then we can explain her behavior recently as the extremely scared and lovelorn reactions of a human who made some mistakes to try to salvage her career and reputation. If she never loved him, she's the cold-hearted snake she warned us of in the 80's. What got me was Corey's Mom's reaction to reading his lyrics about his ordeal. His Mom called Paula on her actions and told her to grow up.

Either way, Paula Abdul has reacted poorly and has done some damage to the competition by misusing her power and then making herself scarce when the shit hit the fan. Even though he was an adult, he was 18 years her junior. He was just another little puppy in her brood.

Or...

Paula and Corey are in on the biggest publicity stunt American Idol has ever pulled. Come with me as we go back in time to a brainstorming session at 19E.

Suit 1: Scandal kind of works for this show, don't you think?
Suit 2: Brilliant!

And the above story is the product of a target market survey of people like me who hate themselves for watching but just can't turn away. The best part of this show for me is conspiracy hunting. What a better way to increase your ratings, if your looking down the road, than to plan a plotline that would stretch across three seasons and would be too delicious to ignore?

This week American Idol will be on or covered for over 6 hours on two networks. Not to mention,Reported on by local affiliates and other media outlets too numerous to contemplate. My local news station WEWS News Channel 5, not only covered the story and covered Primetime Live's coverage of the story, but they are also covering people's reaction to the news!

Fox is laughing all the way to the bank. You know they have a piece of Corey Clark and whatever he makes (well, I don't know that, but I have my suspicions...and this lovely foil hat). If this is a publicity stunt, I tip my foil hat at you bastards; I'm your bitch. If it's just the unhappy luck of being the hottest topic in the country; I'm not so much as "your bitch" but more like ruefully respectful. Either way, I know I'm going to have something to talk about for weeks to come.

I do hope, though, after discussing it with Madame E, that Paula did love him. And that when they throw her off the show, the producers give her a shitload of cash, a record deal and that she rides off into the sunset with Corey Clark and they have beautiful babies together.

Perhaps, I should get a life.