holy crap, I like this show again...

Almost halfway home tonight as the last seven compete to become part of the final six. Ryan has still not shaved as he tells us we can't boo if we don't vote.

Ryan, I can boo whenever I want.

Then we get to see a retrospective of Rod Stewart, "the ultimate entertainer" as he leaps and jumps and drops and spins through the rock songs of thirty years ago. And to think Simon thinks Taylor's antics are silly.

This was, without question, the best overall show of the finals, with only one really poor performance and six really great ones.

Nonetheless, it's time for the kids to take the time machine back to the pop standards and it's time for my early impressions, subject to rewind, review and revision and, as always, from worst to first.

Pickler does something that I don't recall any other Idol contestant ever doing. She judges her own performance of Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered before Randy ever gets to say a word. "I butchered it," she says. Well, butchered would be too many B's in that whole performance, but it certainly wasn't good (and Simon nailed it when he bluntly stated that the song itself is boring - God, that's six B's now). And on a night when only Ace and Katharine remain and everyone has scored high, even a single missed note is a broadcast. (7 B's.) But she had nice shoes, and when all else fails...

Somebody snuck in, stole Ace and replaced him with a ponytailed Ryan Seacrest. He certainly gets points for dressing the part. But, even though I found his That's All a big draggy and boring, I'm giving him credit for giving his best performance, one that Simon dubs "charming", since Father Figure.

Elliott's choice of It Had to Be You is roundly applauded and nobody argues the quality of the vocal performance. Simon, however, does express concern over the performance, questioning where Elliott left his personality. As much as I hate it, Simon was somewhat right, but it's nothing that hasn't plagued Elliott all season, even though this probably was his most relaxed outing.

Paris chooses These Foolish Things and goes for the conservative, pretty look and spellbinds the audience with a pitch-perfect performance that Randy calls her best ever. Can't argue with that. It was, without question, her moment.

Chris kicks off the show in the perfect outfit singing the perfect song. I am so glad those spoilers were wrong. What a Wonderful World, sung strictly to the original was wonderful. It was splendid. It made me remember why I loved him in the beginning of this contest. The judges love it.

Okay, full disclosure, You Send Me is my favorite song of all of the available numbers, and I got giddy realizing that Taylor was going to perform it. After assuring everyone that he found the SNL parody as funny as the rest of us did, he starts the song according to plan but finishes the song with a fabulous flourish that Simon calls magic.

Katharine picks the exact right song in Someone to Watch Over Me, and does exactly what most expected of her. Stewart says she was born to sing the standards. No truer sentence has ever been spoken on this show. She is elegant, even with a bit too much Ace camera flirting, she is wonderful. Simon gets a bit hyperbolic with his assessment that she makes the others look like amateurs, but she is the best of a great night.

So those are mine. What are yours?