Three guys remaining and they would each have only two chances to impress the American public before finding out if they'd made it to the finale or, as Ryan Seacrest has it, the "fuhnnallie." In these days of blanket coverage, twittering and Internet alerts popping into your mail box every few seconds, it's increasingly difficult to avoid spoilers when the live show airs so much earlier in the week than we see it here, and even more so when you've been away for the weekend. Even so I managed to sit down in front of the recording yesterday afternoon not knowing how it would pan out.

A bit different to a couple of years ago, when the mere appearance of Taylor Hicks' name as the largest item in a tag cloud was enough to give the game away. There are some who believe, and have believed for several weeks, that this year's competition is a gimme for Adam Lambert, but Thursday night's performance from Kris Allen showed that no-one is giving up until the results are in. Sadly, Dead Wife Guy Danny Gokey finally reached the end of his road, but making the top three out of 100,000 possibles ain't bad.

The format this week: one "judges' choice" song, and one personal choice, and the show kicked off with the aforementioned Mr Gokey.

Paula had chosen Dance Little Sister for him and immediately, given only the slightest excuse, the judges were into their usual game of "well, I wouldn't have chosen that particular song for him." It gets a little tedious and predictable, and unfortunately those are also adjectives that apply to Danny's performance.

Kris Allen was up next with Randy & Kara's choice of Apologise. Or, seeing as this is AMERICAN Idol: Apologize. No-one seemed especially impressed with this, and Kara in particular said he would have been better to step out from behind the piano and do it with an acoustic guitar. A strange comment, considering Kris had already chosen to perform his second song that way. Anyway, I liked it. Nice arrangement, and good interpretation of the song, I thought.

Adam Lambert, singing last. Conspiracy theorists might think this is a transparent producers attempt to make sure he had the best chance for the highest vote. Staying fresh in the public's mind. Lambert fans would say that he doesn't need such cheap tricks - he's always unique, fresh and interesting. In past weeks I've sung his praises too, but this week I didn't feel he was on his best form. It's almost as if he has a finite number of tricks in his box, and now he's used them all and everything feels like a pale repeat of what's gone before. I thought his rendition of U2's "One" was self-indulgent and changed it up just for the sake of it. Judges liked it though. You can almost see the dollar signs in their eyes.

In the personal choice round, Danny started off with Joe Cocker's You Are So Beautiful. Way too slow for me. And even though the judges said he nailed the vocal, there were some bum notes early on. When you're singing soft and slow like that you need perfect pitch control, and Danny doesn't have it. Which is why he's at his best when he's belting them out.

If you want an example of a "totally nailed" vocal, look no further than the next performance - Kris Allen singing Kanye West's Heartless. For me, the best song of the night. Upbeat, fun, interesting, and musically perfect. Randy said he liked it better than the original.

Adam closed the show with Aerosmith's Crying. Whereas his first song had been his trademark slow haunting ballad with a touch of falsetto, this was his alternative trademark screamy shouty rock song. Dunno what happened to Adam this week, but if he carries on like that in the final I can see the fickle American public abandoning him in favour of Allen. As it is, host Ryan Seacrest reported that only a million votes separated first and second places, out of the 88 million cast. This show is not a done deal, by any stretch.

So Dead Wife Guy bowed out after a creditable run, but on the basis of the performances on that show, rather than what had gone before, it was the right decision. Just a few days left before America crowns its eighth Idol. I'll be going to ground, dodging the text alerts and emails again for a couple of days. Wish me luck.