With the finals only three weeks away, the public are now drafted in to whittle down the American Idol Season 7 contestants from 24 to 12, losing 2 boys and 2 girls from the line-up in each of the next three weeks. This has clearly given ITV2 a challenge with the scheduling this year. A 2-hour boys’ show and a 2-hour girls’ show, which in the US are screened on consecutive nights, are followed by an hour of results, and this plethora of programming has been dancing around the ITV2 schedules a bit. This week the boys were split into two hour-long segments on Thursday night and the remaining shows screened back-to-back in a marathon of American Idol running from 9pm to midnight. They manage to squeeze in a whole host of repeats too!

The judges are unanimous in declaring this season is one of the strongest ever for talent. More finalists than ever before have reappeared from previous years’ contests having gone away, worked on their singing and come back better and brighter. And those for whom this year is their first Idol experience also seem more confident, assured and professional. That said, as with any group of 24 performers there will be a spectrum of ability. So did the American public get it right with their first attempt at voting this year, or were there upsets?

I did get a shiver down my spine at one point, as this year’s favourite of mine – rock biker chick Amanda Overmyer (seen here) was asked to stand up alongside Joanne Borgella (pictured). I never really believed Amanda could go out this early, but there’s always that tiny seed of doubt when it’s down to a public vote, so I let go the breath I didn’t even realise I was holding when she was declared safe, and Joanne sang her last Idol song and left the contest.

All the hopefuls that left this week (this is Amy Davis) took the news with creditable aplomb and smiles, and all had been correctly marked for the chop in our house. Yes, the armchair critics were on the money this week, but let’s not take too much credit. Although it’s true the talent is strong this year, nevertheless Thursday’s and Friday’s shows were the first “real” performances of the 2008 season, so the nerves, the occasion, and simply the fact they needed to raise their game to compete with some *really* good performances from the stronger contestants made the not-so-strong ones easy to pick out.

Say goodbye then to the girls above, and to Colton Berry (left) and Garret Haley (right). Names that, even though they’re always advised to carry on with their singing, and they always say “this is my life,” or “you haven’t heard the last of me,” you know the chances of ever hearing their names again are, well, remote.

Four down, eight more to go before the finals get underway at Television City and next week we get to do it all over again.

American Idol: ITV2, Thursday 28 February, 7.40pm (boys)
American Idol: ITV2, Friday 29 February, 9pm (girls & results)