"American Idol" ought to be getting super exciting right about now, now that almost every obvious candidate for elimination has been sent home and those left have to start manuevering to put themselves into position to win the thing. The trouble is, the people who run "Idol" hate music, and television, and particularly you, and they want to have Inspirational Week. Something about making all the contestants wear white fills them with a sense of accomplishment. As for actual entertainment, look elsewhere. HBO's "John Adams" miniseries is very good.

The big charity week of the show had an unexpected warped nature this time out, since the producers haven't given the cast a single chance to pick their own material the whole season long. This meant that a few of the more desperate people in the field took rather radical interpretations of the category and we ended up with the weird, fevered, but not precisely inspirational "Dream On" of Michael Johns and a strident, hectoring "The Show Must Go On" from Carly Smithson, whose sweaty desperation officially became obnoxious this time. Emotional favorites Jason Castro and Brooke White made obvious choices again, were underwhelming delivering them, and yet should be able to coast through another vote. David Archuleta, who picks a generically inspirational tune every week, was as good as he's been in a long time, finding some unexpected dimensions of expressiveness in his normally vanilla vocals. David Cook was off for the first time in a while, indulgently choosing a song by a terrible band with no melody. Kristy Lee Cook and Syesha Mercado are both lucky to still be alive but neither has any surprises to pull out at this point; even when they're okay as they both were Tuesday it still seems like a deathwatch for that pair. Or maybe it will be Carly, who really does need to be put out of her misery -- you'd think in the seventh season everyone would be savvy to what "Idol" is and how it works, but Smithson seems so white-knuckle set on winning that she's wrecking her chances of having a successful music career after the competition whether she wins or not. She's exhausting to me, and I suspect that the voters might feel the same way.

Michael Johns Michael's logic behind choosing Aerosmith's "Dream On" as an inspirational tune was a bit tortured. Whatever he said for the purposes of the show, what his internal thinking must have been is obvious -- after weeks of scuffling, he'd finally shown his voice in its best light and wanted to bring it with another scorcher. Trouble is, "Dream On" has a slow build that didn't really lend itself to the truncated minute-and-a-half "Idol" format and by rushing to the end, Johns was mostly just squealing by the climax. It was a song choice that a contender would make, but not much of a performance. Whenever I hear "Dream On" I think of how much Steven Tyler's voice has changed since the original was recorded in the early 70's and it seemed like Michael was thinking about that too, he sounded rather imitative for most of the song. Even if he had made more of an effort to stamp his own identity on the tune I think it was too much for Johns' modest talents to handle. I think his built-in fanbase is larger than Carly's but I could of course be wrong. Based on the quality of the vocal he could certainly be a candidate to go home this week. 7

Syesha Mercado Syesha is so predictable with her song choices that she's selling herself short. I don't think she has any shot of winning but she could be positioning herself for a commercially relevant singing career right now. Instead she's dragging out "Idol" warhorse after warhorse in a misguided attempt to outsing everyone else in the field, not something Mercado really has the capacity to do. It's a shame because she is a very good singer and has some verve to her, but with Ramiele gone the only purpose she is serving is to keep nobly carrying the flag of "Idol"'s diva-crazy past. I guess if you want to get into deep strategy Syesha must figure she doesn't have much shot of expanding her following past where it already is so the best thing to do is pick songs that will mobilize her base. That might be the best short-run choice and it could sustain her for another... what, two or three weeks? It's past the point where Syesha could boldly redefine herself and it would be foolish to expect that of her at this point. She is what she is, which is to say a huge bore each week. It wouldn't be total justice if she got the axe instead of Michael or Kristy Lee, but it would probably make for the most entertaining show next week. 8

Jason Castro Castro's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was cute enough, but he hasn't changed his look or style for a month and his vocals have been slipping in quality each time out. He was barely in key at all for "Rainbow," something that didn't seem to register with the judges or the crowd. Personally I would feel uncomfortable if Jason kept performing at this level and made it all the way to the final; there is a certain baseline of respectability "Idol" usually adheres to and Castro is starting to flout it. It's not like he's incapable of singing better, it just hasn't been necessary for a while since it's been so clear that he's more popular than a lot of the other singers in the field. He also still has a boost coming, because Brooke White is going to go out before he does and her fans seem a natural fit to transition over to Jason. It's been a long time since Castro could do the "Aw, shucks, I hate interviews" thing in his pre-song footage and seem believable. He needs a song that he knows really well and some sort of new hook, whatever that may be. It sure would be novel if a guy with dreadlocks who can play the ukulele won "American Idol," but it would be better for all parties involved if said winner actually deserved it a little. 6

Kristy Lee Cook I kind of feel sorry for Kristy Lee because I am running out of ways to say she's just not very good. Wait, no, I don't feel sorry for Kristy Lee. I feel sorry for myself. She brought about the best vocal she's shown throughout the whole competition in the last third of her performance Tuesday, and it was still a B-minus. That's as good as Kristy can get, and if she could look pretty and maintain that standard, it might be enough, but she only peaks at B-minus -- when she's out of key, as she was for most of the verses of her song this week, she's way worse than that. Also, every time she moves at all on stage it seems overplanned and mechanical. She'd be an excellent regional beauty pageant candidate but she's kind of a dud as an "Idol" contestant, and having prevailed on both god and country to sustain her run this unnaturally long, it'd be a fine time to ride off into the sunset. I wish we were so lucky, but I think Kristy Lee has a few more weeks in the bottom three without being the big loser left in her. I'll bet she outlasts Carly, which based solely on talent level would be a travesty. 7

David Cook David Cook has been consistently good longer than anybody else in the field. It's hard to remember the last time he came out and was just lousy. Well, not any longer! David chose to do a song called "Innocent," by the deservedly forgotten alterna-band Our Lady Peace, which according to Cook is his favorite band ever. Really? Our Lady Peace? And I thought Blake Lewis's 311 fixation was embarrassing. Well, Cook's crappy taste is a subject for another time and place, but his song pick we can deconstruct right now. Why pick a tune that allowed no space whatsoever for Cook's money vocal midrange? He was either way too deep, doing a half-assed impersonation of OLP's singer, or way too high, squeaking at us in a lumpy falsetto. Where were all the soaring notes we come to expect from Rocker David? Hiding in a better song. The judges didn't really express the sentiment coherently, but it was vain of Cook to pick a song he liked that no one had heard. He's one of the favorites, but he's not so safe that he can do whatever he wants from here on out. Another brash arrangement of a well-known tune like his watershed "Hello" would have been a good move here. Our Lady Peace was profoundly not. He's one of the few in the field who could afford a total disaster, though, and this fell a bit short of that mark. 7

Carly Smithson Vocal talent has never been the issue with Carly, who was powerful and professional again this week. The trouble is that she looks somewhere between desperate and miserable on stage, and the effect has gotten only more extreme with each passing week. Singing Queen's "The Show Must Go On" (a very weird choice indeed) Smithson was doing everything short of grabbing the audience by the lapels and demanding they like her. This had the opposite effect as intended. I'm terrified of Carly now and I want her to go away. How did she perceive a cumbersome, dated Queen anthem as a good choice for 2008's "American Idol" inspirational week? Like her hair and her outfit, the song was just... tacky. And Carly's deluded attitude that anything she does is brilliant because, well, dammit, she's Carly is one shared by few in the "Idol" viewing audience. I think that the judges and the producers want her to go home this week, in classic recognition of their own failure to shape Carly's arc properly. Her story has been supposed to inspire "Idol" viewers since early on in the auditions, yet past a small core of loyalists everyone I know who watches "Idol" is just sick to death of Carly and her tenacious need for everyone to like her as much as she likes herself. For some reason I think the "Idol" braintrust would love for Carly to go home this of all weeks. They are usually pretty good at manipulating results to meet their desires. 8

David Archuleta I still have trouble remembering his last name, but here's little David, who's really not as bad as I make him out to be sometimes nor anywhere near as good as the frothing, drooling judges describe him week after week. This was one of David's best performances, as he picked a song that was slightly more soulful than is the norm for him and he gave it some really nice flavor with vocal ad libs. He had a lot of noticeable timing issues, starting a lot of his lines late from the beat, but that is kind of a common complaint with Archuleta seeing as he knows absolutely nothing about music and has to learn his entire song from scratch every week. David is talented but just too young -- his peak is higher than Kristy Lee's but it's still no better than a B-plus or so because he simply never has any idea of what it is he's singing. He should have waited another two or three years before going on "Idol." That said, he could still totally win, if none of the more interesting but less adorable kids ahead of him seizes their moment. 8

Brooke White White did a bit of a brave thing coming off of the piano this week -- most of the times she's done that she's looked awkward and exposed. She was dressed too chastely in an unflattering pink dress but "You've Got a Friend" was a total alley-oop of a song choice, like Jason's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and she didn't blow it. White isn't going to win over new converts at this point so give her credit for a nice honest reading of a great song. When White goes, it probably won't have anything to do with her performance that week -- it will be more a product of her being the least popular singer left. I think she's ahead of a few people still so this won't be her week. Good candidate for the bottom three, though. 8

I think it's going to be Carly Smithson -- she's not that popular, and she's utterly blown her vocal advantage by picking songs terribly and dressing hideously to boot. The eight-sided die likes Michael Johns, also a distinct possibility.