That said, I do think that the talent has been pretty steady if not improving over the course of the show’s existence (whatever lack there is, IMO, comes down to personality, charisma, and telegenicness, and if you want, pan-generic versatility) simply by virtue of the numbers: more kids are trying out means a wider pool of talent, which means they can bring more of them to Vegas, which means that the casting for top 20 can be pickier and choosier for what they want without necessarily sacrificing talent. They can lay the groundwork for the future while still addressing the short-term bottom-line.

Where this formula gets problematized, in the minds of viewers, is with the final cuts, because the kids we’d been getting to know (and with Bianca Revels and Natalie Reid, we’d been getting to know them an extra ‘year’) are summarily dismissed in favor of these strangers who ultimately became our top 20. These strangers are equally talented (in different ways), but the one thing they lack(ed), in the opinions of viewers, is the familiarity that Natalie or Bianca had, and their unfamiliarity/unknownness ultimately translates to THE TOP 20 SUCKS OMG.

For twosies, you don’t just write off a season hoping you’ll get a stronger lead in for Glee. Not to mention, don’t you think a lackluster summer season would depress ratings for the fall (which I’d put money on actually happening, considering how less than awesome this seasons been)? Then there’s the fact that thousands of people auditioned and hundreds made it to Vegas. You really think there weren’t two or three casts worth of capable dancers? And they’re holding auditions for season 6, with thousands more dancers. You think they were scared they couldn’t come up with another 20? Poppycock, I say.

Ok. Mental break’s over. I’m going back to Matt Taibbi’s article on how Goldman Sachs is destroying the world. Hopefully I won’t decide to kill myself before it’s over.

Did you know Nigel held back better dancers from season 5 in order to make season 6 more entertaining? It’s true. I read it somewhere.

Actually, that’s a theory that’s at least grounded in realism. Season 6, a fall season, is going to be a lot more important than season 5 – it’s essentially SYTYCD’s “promotion” to Fox’s serious big-time. It does make sense that Nigel and the other producers might want to make sure their talent was top-notch for the sixth season. It explains a lot of things (incredibly talented dancers like Natalie and Ryan’s respective not-getting-on-the-shows, relative nontalents like Tony and Jonathan making the cut this time around, etc.).

After all, season 5 is essentially shaping up to be the season of a few people who couldn’t realistically be kept off the show any longer (Brandon, Philip, maybe Jeanette) and a bunch of talented and not-very-charismatic also-rans.

But I’m largely playing devil’s advocate. I do think it’s incredibly unlikely (though the example of AntandDec’s show would be the relevant one – there they were able to blame some producers who fell on their swords and the names “didn’t know anything about it”). I misread your post as saying it was utterly stupid of people to believe such theories. (Which I’m still not entirely convinced. Probably stupid to think that’s definitely not the case, but I’m cynical enough to not want to definitely rule it out. Actually, have you ever seen Charlie Brooker? This clip from his Screenwipe series is somewhat relevant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBwepkVurCI Very unlikely, but I can see some very heavy pushing being done to shape things into better stories. Having never seen SYTYCD or American Idol, I really can’t argue.) As opposed to your actual thesis that they’re wrong.

And they do throw challenges and they do very selectively give information. Big Brother being slighly rigged for maximum entertainment value is like Britney Spears lip synching in concert. Not only does everyone know, but they don’t actually care.

But that is a completely separate type of show.

The ones that are an actual competition? Voted by the audience? The last thing they want is a law suit or the bad publicity. I mean why risk the billion dollar idol franchise over keeping a singer for another week.

A lot of things came to light – to the extent that Simon Cowell had to publically say at the start of the most recent series of The X-Factor, the direct descendant of the show which sent Nigel Lythcoe to fame, one of the top two reality shows in the country, that it wasn’t fixed. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7561567.stm Which does actually mean it’s not entirely unreasonable to suggest such a thing may be fudged.

Paul O’Brien speaks about it here. http://ifdestroyed.blogspot.com/2007/10/can-i-interest-you-in-phone-vote.html [It's worth noting that Ant and Dec are huge here. The two of them are A household name, and definitely among biggest showbiz names. Who, incidentally, returned an award at the British Comedy Awards, after that viewer-nominated award had been rigged. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-564778/Ant-Dec-want-award-phone-vote-rigged-Robbie-Williams-wanted-win.html ]

It’s not totally unheard of. Yes, it’s not that likely. It’s not that implausible, though.

Especially not after game show fixing scandals nearly destroyed TV in the 50s.