Halfway through tonight’s American Idol results show, a smile broke out on Simon Scowl’s face as he uttered, “I’m beginning to sense something.” The smile lingered all the way through a boring performance by Martina McBride to the long awaited moment of truth. The bottom three contestants, Sanjaya, Lakisha, and Blake, stood a center stage awaiting their fate. Seacrest milked the moment by making a big deal out of telling Blake that he had survived another week, and then it was down to two. And then it came—America had voted and Sanjaya was finally going home!

Hallelujah!

After that, Simon exuded happiness as I’d never seen from him before.

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but I have to wonder whether the Howard Stern minions (the lemmings) have shifted their protest voting attention from Sanjaya to Chris. After all, Chris was awful on Tuesday, arguably second worst only to Sanjaya’s crappy performance. It didn’t make sense that Blake, not Chris was in the bottom three.

Be that as it may, the competition gets fairer from now on. The remaining six are all pretty normal, although the men are significantly less talented than the women. At this point, it looks like Jordin and Melinda in the final, unless Lakisha can step up to the plate and hit a home run. Without Sanjaya, this mindless entertainment gets a little more interesting.

Who is likely to get kicked off American Idol this week? Let your favorite railbird, The Nittany Turkey, handicap the remaining contestants’ chances of getting the axe this week.

This week is “country week.” Martina McBride will be the guest mentor. This creates a problem for just about everyone who remains. I’m a-thinkin’ that Haley would have been hot to watch in a pair of tight, studded jeans, but she’s gone. Oh, the singing, you say? Like American Idol is really about singing! Haley wasn’t much of a singer, but she sure as hell entertained me. If this competition is about singing, then why the hell is Sanjaya and his supporting cast of programmed idiots doing so well? But I digress. I just don’t think that country suits any of the remaining dudes and dudesses, but they they might just suprise us all.

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This week’s guest mentor on American Idol is Jennifer Lopez, which should make it interesting for the remaining eight contestants. This is supposed to be a “Latin-themed” week, and I suspect they don’t mean the kind of Latin you learned in Catholic school. In fact, the nuns would in no way approve of the dance moves I hope to see performed by the delightfully callipygian J-Lo on Wednesday night.

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