So as it turns out, a nuke will kill a cockroach. Or so it appears for now -- we thought he was out the door last year too and he managed to scurry back, so there's a chance for him (or rather, any last scared-of-change producer) to reverse this. But his being given the chance to hand out the illusion that it was his choice... with the news stories starting to fly, the network wants the partings to at least look amicable. Good luck getting Nicki to cooperate with that.

(Do you think his vocabulary is truly that weak, or was that just the only way he could think to start any statement in the world?)

I've written a few times on the season's falling ratings & interest: our own lack of discussion reflects that. But I don't think changing all four seats on the panel (including a possible drop to three) is going to fix things. I bowed out this year because the manipulation was too blatant, editing so heavy-handed that it slapped anyone who tried to see beneath. This was a year which created Worsters. (No joke: I watched the sea change for one person who came in to blast them -- then suddenly caught on to what the show was doing and joined the pack. It was like watching a dolphin turn into a shark.) This mass switchout -- reset button, or an attempt to get people in who can be used as puppets with more reliability than the current group? Are we moving back to a semi-open talent contest or heading all the way to purely scripted television? Because this season was 90% of the way towards the later instead of Simon's 68% or so -- and look what happened to the viewership.

Well, to be frank, most of those may have just been angry about the lack of WGWGs. Lowest common denominator..

We'll see who gets brought in and how many. But for now, the only changes I expect to see are strictly cosmetic.