Good news! I finally got to grips with the schedule and didn’t miss ANY of the Idol coverage this week. So when I sat down in front of the telly last night with my sweet chilli chicken pizza and played back Thursday’s show (we like to make it “Idol night” on Fridays round here), the first voice I heard was Luke Menard. The guy who, last week, was in the bottom three but didn’t leave.

Guess what? He sounded just like you would expect someone to sound if they’d been in the bottom three and two other singers were gone. As in, bottom. So did he leave? And who else was pared from the 16 to give us the American Idol final 12 for 2008? Jump over the cut for my take on this week’s proceedings.

So yes, as it turned out, Luke was the first to go. No surprises there. Following the theme of songs from previous decades, It was 80s week this week and Luke chose to sing Killer Queen. How many times have we seen Queen songs murdered on reality shows? Thing is, Freddie made them look easy, but anyone who’s ever tried to sing one knows they are anything but. The reason they sounded good when he sang them was simple: he was an incredibly good singer. Anyone taking on a Queen number either has to be almost as good, or they’re heading for disaster. And in Luke Menard’s case they needed to call 911.

This was a shock exit for me. 19-year-old Asia’h Epperson, with the right song, was a strong contender and even after her weak rendition of I Wanna Dance with Somebody, both Randy and Paula thought it was a pretty good showing. Only Simon called it “at best…second rate Whitney” but even he thought it was good enough for the top 12. American didn’t agree, and Asia’h is out. As I’ve said before, the competition is really strong this year and the loss of Asia’h just went to show that even good singers have to be consistently at the top of their game AND choose the right songs every week. Intense, or what?

Guess what? Another Queen song; another dead contestant. This time a really weird choice: Who Wants to Live Forever (from the soundtrack of the original Highlander movie). Actually a moving and powerful song if it’s done well, but in Kady’s case totally forgettable. Loopy Paula’s comment? “To date, for me, this was your best performance.” Doesn’t say much does it? But she’s built quite a reputation on Idol for never saying anything negative. Simon was more pointed (no, honestly?) calling her performance robotic. So once again: good singer + poor song choice + charisma-free performance = end of Idol career.

Even though Danny’s rendition of Tainted Love was appalling, I still didn’t really expect him to leave tonight. I thought he’d be one of those contestants who builds up a strong fan base, enough to keep them going for a few weeks in the finals against the odds. Or maybe even a contender for this year’s “Vote for the Worst” cult, assuming there’s going to be one. Randy and Simon clearly didn’t think it was good enough and Paula treated us to one of her vacuous comments that doesn’t really say much but you know she’s trying to be nice again (“I love the fact that you’re true to yourself”).

Once again David Archuleta put in a strong performance, although even he hit a few bum notes just to prove he is human, and he was warned against choosing too many sad, gloomy songs. A couple of other really stand-out performances tonight, but I’ll save those for my break-down of this year’s top 12, coming soon.