Early in the season, I was rather optimistic about the judges. Here’s what I said:

The new judging panel seems to be working out quite well – none of them are as useless as Ellen was last year, J-Lo is figuring out a way to be supportive and not sound Paula-nuts, and Randy is settling into an “overseer” role, keeping things going. Perhaps most importantly, as I said last year, they didn’t try to replace the “nasty judge” slot that Simon filled.

That was back in the semi-finals. Boy, was my early optimism misplaced. Here’s what I said during the top eight week:

They were doing a good enough balance of giving criticism and praise earlier in the season; this week they ladled on the praise so thickly everyone at home was liable to become diabetic. It’s almost like we took Paula Abdul, took out the drunkenness and whatever else she was on, then cloned her three times. It’s enough to make you wish for Kara DioGuardi.

If anything, they were even worse this week. Their comments this week were more of the same vacuous, useless praise. “In it to win it” has become Randy’s new “pitchy”. Steven Tyler is either a mad prophet (sometimes, he is remarkably prescient), or just plain mad. J-Lo offers more lucid “advice” than the former Aerosmith frontman, but hers is not particularly useful either – and that advice comes in between some rather blatant self-promotion. Oy.

Of course, viewer unhappiness with Idol is nothing new. Simon Cowell was, by the end of his Idol tenure, frequently clueless (with comments that made no sense), gratuitously cruel, or trying too hard to manipulate viewers to what he wanted. The less said about Ellen, the better. Kara DioGuardi showed some potential, but the team dynamics were never in her favor.

So judge problems are something of an Idol tradition. The odd thing is, however, no other reality TV show seems to have so severe judge problems. I don’t follow other reality shows as much as I do Idol, but I never hear Dancing With The Stars fans complain so much about the judging. If there is complaining, it’s about a point or so in either direction – not the kind of “are they out of their mind?” thoughts that inhabit the Idolsphere every week.

Even Nigel Lythgoe should know that judges on TV shows don’t usually get the kind of fire Randy, J-Lo, or Steven have received. After all, he’s a judge on So You Think You Can Dance. I don’t see the eternally-shifting judging panels there draw the same fire that the Idol panel does. Clearly something is off in Idol-land.

The effects of the failure of Idol‘s judges to, ugh, judge were obvious: with no useful feedback, contestants got stuck in creative ruts. I understand that the “kinder, gentler” judging is a direct reaction to the cruelty of Simon’s later years, but they’ve gone too far. Criticism does not have to be cruel (a point Simon largely forget by the end of his tenure). It also requires judges who aren’t afraid of a little fire coming their way. High-profile celebrities like J-Lo and Steven have images to protect; they may think that “being tough” would hurt their images. Pointless, personal criticism would; but reasoned, well-meaning criticism won’t. The question is whether they’re capable of it.

Steven is probably a lost cause, but that’s fine. One cheerleader on the panel is not a problem. Jennifer and Randy, though… they’re not lost causes. They need a serious sit-down with Nigel post-season – or even right now – to lay out what’s expected of judges. They are not cheerleaders; they are there to deliver honest criticism and help turn these unpolished singers into true singers who can make it onto the national stage. This isn’t rocket science. So why is it so damn hard for Idol to pull it off. I don’t know; given that Nigel is such a self-professed “control freak” it’s a mystery why he’s letting this pass unnoticed. Either the panel has no cojones to do what’s necessary, or he wants it this way. (The latter might make sense as a contrast to Nasty Simon, but even then it’s gone way too far.)

Whatever the case, I can say this much: it’s turned what should have been a good Idol season – and still can be, to be fair – into an immensely frustrating one.

Lots of people have said that the guys have had the advantage this year. When the history of Season Ten is written, that may well be the case – but it sure as heck wasn’t the case this week. The ladies took risks, and there’s no other way to say it: the guys got owned last night, pure and simple.

Winner of the night – and it wasn’t even particularly close – was Haley. It was all due to her second song. Rarely has the course of a season changed on one song, but I genuinely think Haley did that this week. Words are not really enough to say how good House of the Rising Sun was. The vocals were great. She sang it like she really meant it. It felt… appropriately epic. Who knew that Steven Tyler, of all people, would prove prophetic? Didn’t he say that one performance could change things for Haley? Well, maybe Steven Tyler is some sort of mad prophet. If she can get into the finale – and her early struggles make that hard – I think she’ll win against anyone else. Even Scotty.

Don’t take away anything from the first song – it was a good performance in its own right. Yes, it was a risky choice, but that’s how Haley’s gotten this far. She’s taken the most risks out of this crop of finalists. Picking the unreleased Lady Gaga song was another decision like that. Given how current the first round songs would be, comparisons to the original are inevitable. Those rarely benefit the Idol contestant. So why not minimize the risk by picking something that’s relatively unknown? The fact that Haley is not a Lady Gaga-type of singer song further helps minimize the comparison. It was a calculated risk. It may not have paid off as well as Haley wanted, but after the second performance… who cares?

Lauren did well, but her version of Flat On The Floor showed exactly why Haley took that kind of risk. Under any other circumstances it would have been great. Good vocals, nice energy, played to the crowed, everything you could ask for. Flat On The Floor was never released as a single, but it was also the first song on the Carnival Ride tour setlist. In short, it’s the song that Carrie used to get people off their feet. That’s not a comparison Lauren can win. It was good, but it’s entirely in the shadow of the original. It’s a good thing that Unchained Melody was sung pretty well too. However, it too had a flaw of its own: it felt a little cold. Lauren’s a good singer, but with the slow, “sensitive” songs she has difficulty telling the emotions. Still, both of her performances were good in their own right. You could do a heck of a lot worse.

As for the guys, they had a very mixed bag. Scotty had one good performance and one not-so-good one. Gone never felt like it arrived at all, and honestly it almost seemed like the backup singers were doing more work than Scotty was. You Were Always On My Mind was much better, and Scotty really nailed it. I just wish he hadn’t hit this particular nail so many times already – how many slow country songs has Scotty done? Too many, in my opinion.

James had an incredibly off night. His first song was, for all the fancy clothing, and all the production values, incredibly boring. It all felt a bit silly. If you had your eyes closed for the entire performance, you would not have imagined that such an uninspiring vocal had that kind of props. On the other hand, maybe all the fancy effects was there to hide the singing. Your mileage may vary. The second song, though, was just not good. I understand it was emotional, but good singers are usually able to keep it in check and not let it affect the singing. If you have to break down, do it like Crystal Bowersox did last year with People Get Ready – break down at the end. It’s a singing competition, and James just didn’t sing well.

As for Jacob, well… the first rule when you’re in a hole is simple: stop digging. Instead, we got another two over-the-top, over-singing performances. Dismal.

Who’s going home: By all rights, this should be easy. Jacob has shown essentially zero growth since the semifinals. He’s clearly over his head, and is as obvious a pick as it should be.

And yet… I can’t shake the evil feeling we’re in for a huge robbery later tonight. Haley has exceeded everyone’s expectations, to be honest – if I told you that her leaving fifth would be a robbery, the response would be: “You’re nuts.” Yet, that’s exactly where we are. No one has shown more improvement over a season of Idol than Haley. No one. She should be safe, but the sad reality is she won’t be. There’s a very good chance she’ll be right beside whoever goes home tonight at the end – and just an off chance she could go home.

However, a common theory in the sports world is the “nobody believes in us” theory. In short, if no one gives a team – or player – a shot at victory, that is when they are most dangerous. Isn’t Haley in this territory already? Did anyone really give her a chance of winning? I rather doubt it. “Nobody believed in us” is powerful mojo, and it’s been paying off dividends for Haley. Maybe, just maybe, it will work right to the end.

The pick: Jacob Lusk to go home.

It’s taken a very long time, but finally it seems like this season has really begun. We saw people actually going out of their comfort zones, taking risks, and looking like they actually want to win this season. It looks like weeks of unrelenting fire from the Idolsphere has whipped this season into shape.

First, the duets: I’m generally a fan of contestants using the duet to cut back, have some fun, play to the crowd, and ham it up. Jokes about Casey and Haley choosing, of all songs, I Feel The Earth Move – I could make so many bad jokes about it – but I won’t. It was the most fun performance to watch, they both sang pretty well (Haley was better than Casey), and clearly (and unsurprisingly) had tons of chemistry together. The two remaining acts were basically polar opposites – Lauren/Scotty had the better vocals, but the chemistry wasn’t there and everything felt awkward and boring. Jacob and James – perhaps the Oddest Couple in Idol history – sang about as well as two drunks in a karaoke bar, but it was fun.

Alright, the solos. Worst to best. Jacob was, the worst of the night. (And I’m not just talking about the outfit.) It’s not that it was a bad performance, but it wasn’t too dissimilar from what he’d done before. The vocals were good, but more or less in line with what we’ve seen from Jacob before. It was an okay performance, but forgettable. It was just there, with no real high or low points. Most nights, this would have been good enough – but not tonight. And no one will forget the suit Jacob wore – which has to be one of the ugliest outfits in the history of television. Mirrors must not exist in the Idol mansion.

I’m normally all in favor of risk-taking, but I’m honest to point out when it doesn’t work. Lauren’s choice of Where You Lead, I Will Follow was… not a particularly good one. Or it might have worked, but it needed a more aggressive, upbeat arrangement. I’m still not a fan of this suddenly timid and restrained Lauren, but I can see that she took some risk with the song choice. Again, like Jacob, it’s not that she sang it poorly, it’s just that there was no special appeal to it.

Casey was entertaining, but not particularly good with Hi-De-Ho. He went back to his roots, figured out what he was really about, and amped everything up to 11. Is it going to win him any new fans? No, but people like me who like The Growl (at least in limited doses) will like it. There was nothing subtle or particularly refined about it; Casey basically manhandled that song into submission. Was it a vocal masterpiece? No, but it had the merit of being entertaining as heck, even if Casey was being an unbelievably Large Ham on the Idol stage. You could do a heck of a lot worse.

From here on, though, I think things got much better. Last week’s barrage of criticism had a lot of effect on Scotty; you’d be hard-pressed to find a bigger one-week change from one week to the next. This was a good song choice: it was well within his capabilities, and for his fangirls it was gold. That said, Scotty did very well: it was a side of him we hadn’t really seen before, he sang very well, and proved that he’s not just a one-trick pony. I think it was, by far, his best performance to date. Most nights, it would have been the best. But it wasn’t.

Haley has to sing lights outs just to stay in, and he did that once again. Haley may be making the best song choices out of anyone this season (though I suspect Casey’s helping out quite a bit). She’s really figured out her strength and is good at finding these songs where she can use her unique vocals to the best advantage. Very polished, very professional, and frankly that live performance wouldn’t have been out of place on the radio. It’s rare to see someone get better so drastically over the span of a season.

Still, everyone had to take a backseat to James. Finally, we got that one special moment we’ve been looking for. It wasn’t just the best song of the night; it was the best performance of the entire season. Good song choice, great vocals, it felt emotionally connected… this was a top-notch Idol performance, period. The a capella was good (though I wish there was more of it), the rock part was good, James got to show off a bit… well done overall. Well done.

By a healthy margin, this was the best episode we’ve had since the beginning of the season.

The pick: The two people in the most danger are Casey and Jacob. Jacob didn’t improve much this week, and while Casey may have pleased his fanbase it may have alienated other voters. Don’t forget that the strength of Casey’s fanbase is still suspect – he had to be saved by the judges, after all. Haley doesn’t deserve to be in this discussion, but given her frequent bottom three stays she will be.

My pick to depart is Jacob. He was the worst of the night, has struggled of late, and has been in the bottom three a fair bit of late. It’s his time to go. Unfortunately, though, Haley will be right there beside him. She spent too much time early not singing particularly well, and that is usually fatal to long-term success. Even if she stays this week her survival next week – whatever the theme – will be hard.

The pick: Jacob Lusk to go home.

Maybe it’s just me, but this Idol season seems to have gone by remarkably quickly. With only six people left, the finale is only about a month off. This is when the competition really gets serious, and everyone should bring their A-game – if they haven’t. (Let’s just say this group has some room for improvement.)

Before I go into what the top six should do to win, a few quick thoughts about this week’s results. Stefano was the right person to go home. The bottom three wasn’t much of a surprise either; Jacob deserved to be there and Haley spent too much time floundering in the earlier stages to build a good fanbase. Haley shouldn’t have been there, but Idol voting is rarely the result of just one night’s singing.

So, to the meat of this piece: what does the top six need to do to get into the finale? Let’s do it from most likely to least likely.

1. Scotty McCreery

Scotty is the owner of two solid fanbases: country voters and tweens. Both of which are remarkably powerful fanbases in the world of Idol. Unless he turns into a reincarnation of Sanjaya Malakar he’s going into the finals. (Even that might not be enough.)

Scotty’s real problem is whether he can win in the finale. He’s not like other people who’ve never ended up in the final two that could basically blow everyone else out of the water vocally like Carrie Underwood or David Cook. Instead, he’s more like Taylor Hicks (similarly polarizing and would probably have lost against anyone else except Katharine McPhee) or Crystal Bowersox (lost in the finale). He really needs to give people other than his fans a reason to at least sit on their hands, and not vote for whoever he’s competing against in the finale. To do that, he’ll need… to sing something that doesn’t use the same darn arrangement every time. Who knows, miracles might happen.

2. James Durbin

Assuming Murphy doesn’t rear his head, James has the smoothest path to the finale. He’s established his “style”, sang quite well week-to-week, and changes enough every week not to sound so one-dimensional. James’s biggest problem is I’m not sure he commands much support from the strongest fanbases that (supposedly) dominate voting nowadays: cougars and teens/tweens. Whether they do or not is something that I’m not 100% convinced of yet.

However, whether James could actually do anything to help himself with those fans is doubtful. All he can do is sing well and let that build his own fanbase organically. It’s a classic case of “keep doing what you’re doing, but only better.”

3. Lauren Alaina

If you believe the pre-show hype, Lauren’s one of the most talented contestants in this field. So far, we’ve seen glimpses of that talent, but just that: glimpses. More than anyone else in this season, there’s a lot of untapped potential with Lauren. She needs to get her confidence back: of late she’s looked and sounded intimidated. It doesn’t help that she’s gone away from what it looked like her strength was uptempo material that showed off her ability to perform. Lately she’s trying to turn into a more “traditional” slow singer, which is a huge mistake. She’s got a lively personality, can perform like heck, so why isn’t she playing to her strengths?

Lauren has the talent, but hasn’t quite managed to figure out what direction she wants to go. Given how young she is, this shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Still, she needs to figure out what kind of artist she really wants to be, pick songs that fit that mold and she can do well, and do consistently well. Whatever she does, though, with Scotty stealing so much of the country fanbase, it will be a hard climb.

4. Casey Abrams

There’s one question that any good artist needs to be able to answer with no hesitation and hedging. What kind of artist am I? So far, the answer is… quirky. That’s not exactly the right answer. Casey’s gone from being a rocker to a slow ballad singer to the guy with an oversized violin. Right now most of us have no idea just what to expect from Casey. This is good on some level, but it makes it downright hard to build a fanbase. The trick is for Casey to be… consistently quirky. Fundamentally, Casey doesn’t want to be pigeonholed so easily. I respect that kind of artistry, but it doesn’t exactly help someone on Idol. Casey’s gotten this far by singing reasonably well, but consistently has not been his strong suit.

5. Jacob Lusk

Strategically, Jacob is pretty similar to Scotty. They’re both doing “safe” songs in their respective genres, neither is straying from the artistic tone they set from Day One… and neither is attracting much fans outside of their original fanbase. The trouble is that Jacob never enjoyed the stable fanbase that Scotty’s had from the start. He’s had a decent-sized fanbase that’s kept him largely safe, but by the time you reach the top six you need to have some sort of solid fanbase if you want to get any further. Jacob… doesn’t. Realistically, baring major failures from the rest of the field, he’s not going to make it.

6. Haley Reinhart

Under better circumstances Haley would not be this low. The sad fact is, however, her early stumbles did hurt her badly. Fanbases are built early, when people haven’t yet made up their mind. By the top six, too many people – particularly power voters – have, and unless she’s capturing the fans of departed contestants, Haley is in trouble. She’s done well to get this far – her namesake Haley Scarnato, who she draw comparisons to as Designated Eye Candy, only finished eighth.

She really has only one choice. She needs to sing lights out – think Rolling In The Deep or Bennie And The Jets good – every single week just to stay. That may be too much to ask of her – she hasn’t managed that kind of consistency at all. She’s had her moments, but in between she turns in mediocre numbers. It’s all about song choice for her, and to a large degree that’s dependent on theme. Which is why, in all likelihood, she’ll be leaving the Idol stage next week.