Did they REALLY win?

3 competition shows I watch all ended in the past few days. All of which seemed to have a front runner for most of the season only to pull a swerve in the last two episodes and have someone else win. It's kind of odd the way these happen and brings to question...did the REALLY win?

Let's start with Hell's Kitchen. From day one, anyone could have seen that Paula was going to be the winner, then somewhere in the last 3 weeks or so, after the teams merged, Danny started stepping up, or at least getting noticed. Needless to say these two faced were the most talented of the entire season, but it seemed as though Paula was set to be the next winner. That is, until the finale when her team let her down. I have to wonder if they really are that inept, or if that was staged by the producers. I mean, these are supposed to be world class chefs and all. I could spend an entire blog on that Lacey girl. --rolls eyes--

Regular readers of my blog, now that I like Dancing with the Stars (especially Cheryl Burke). The finale went down this week. Everyone, and I do mean everyone had picked the unknown French guy, apparently he was naked in Sex and the City which is his claim to fame, and the Bachelor runner up to have a showdown. Gilles was there, but Melissa was replaced with Shawn Johnson, the Olympic gymnast. Johnson went on to shock the world and win it all. Of course, the track record of the show seems to be that athletes win. So, I wonder if that was the case here, not to mention the whole stalking that was going on at the beginning of the season probably brought in a few sympathy votes for her. I can say this, though, at least Melissa didn't come in second on two shows...lol

Finally, we have the big one, American Idol. Unless you've been living under a rock or something, then you no doubt know that Kris Allen pulled the biggest upset ever and stole the crown from Adam Lambert. I have no malice towards Kris, but Adam was the superior talent and should have won this. America got it wrong, just like they did a couple years back when they voted Melinda Doolittle (one of the most talented and humble contestants to ever grace that stage) off in favor of Blake Lewis and eventual winner Jordin Sparks. With the exception of Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, winners haven't exactly had the most spectacular of careers (jury is still out on David Cook). Those that don't win, such as Chris Daughtry, Jennifer Hudson, Kelly Pickler, etc., tend to do bigger things. So, as long as Adam doesn't go the Clay Aiken route and become a bitter queen, he'll be fine. As for Kris, I wish him the best, but something tells me he'll be joining Taylor Hicks on the county fair circuit sooner than later.

...didn't think I was gonna go through all that without mentioning the real reason why Adam didn't win, do you? Well, apparently, Bill O'Reilly brought up some pictures of Adam kissing a guy. Not sure if it was brought up before then, but I digress, he made this whole big spiel that America's "idol" doesn't need to be homosexual. You know, typical conservative, closed minded viewpoint. This brought up the whole debate about whether folks would vote for him or not. On top of that, there was Danny Gokey getting voted off the week before. Gokey and Allen are similar in style and lifestyles in their Christian/family ways of life. As a matter of fact, Gokey was supposed to have been in the final with Adam, but I won't go into that. The final reason is that the voters of Idol are mostly teens who don't like being told what to do, and since the judges all but gave Adam the crown in like week 3, or whenever it was that he did that totally awesome version of "Ring of Fire", they wanted someone else to win, just to prove them wrong.

Guess it worked, but this time next year, we'll see who has the better career, Adam, Kris...or maybe neither. What do you think of these winners? Do you agree that something fishy seemed up with the way they happened to win, or was it just coincidence?