I don’t just mean the end for this season. I mean the true end of The Show, as I suspect we have seen the imminent snuffing out of the cheesy bits that have always been so appealing to me.

The Show, at its heart, has always been a bit of a late-1960s/early-1970s television variety show, ala Sonny and Cher or Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters. There were the inevitable production numbers — made even worse this year at times by the participation of the apparent hellspawn of the Solid Gold Dancers — and the groaning awfulness of those bits always made the ‘singing competition’ aspect of the show a lot more tolerable to me. It’s the closest thing we have to the Eurovision Song Contest, although not really in the same neighborhood of fantastic hypercheese.

By now, you probably know that the entire panel o’ judges has been sacked. What you might not know is that the executive producer also reportedly is being shown the door. In a year that featured both a Standards Night and, inexplicably, Burt Bacharach Night, it’s not hard to understand why a change of executive faceplates might be needed. And the final featured Frankie Valli, who just turned 79 and has been performing since before my 53-year-old self was even born.

Most importantly, since competing singing shows have chosen not to be so inexplicably goofy, Idol’s been getting its clock cleaned in the ratings. It’s just a show now, not really The Show, and I’m not entirely sure that anyone can or should resuscitate this 12-year-old beast. That’s a great run in television, and perhaps The Show should just be left to rest. But that’s not the way the business operates — you’re not dead in commercial television until every last ounce of revenue has been drained from you — so someone’s going to attach electrodes to this monster and try to fire it up again in a few months. But I think my days of attention, much less obsession, are over.

P.S.: Great winner this year, though. Great winner. And there was no guy-with-guitar anywhere in sight.