Would you believe I was abducted by aliens?

Okay, maybe not aliens. Truth is, since the show aired Wednesday night I've been wandering the streets of Perth in a daze. I haven't known which way to turn. Should I join a religious cult, maybe become a Scientologist or get a bicycle and a mens suit and move to Salt Lake City and teach the ways of the Mormon's? Up has been down, black has been white, cats have loved dogs and I liked Lavina Williams performance. No, strike that. I LOVED Lavina Williams' performance.

I DON'T KNOW WHO I AM ANYMORE.

I'm going to retrace my footsteps, maybe see exactly where it all went so horribly, tragically, disfiguringly wrong . . .

We open the final night of semi-finals with the winners from the previous night. G and Mathieson have swapped again and G completely and utterly breaks my fucking heart by NOT announcing that Ricky Muscat is through. No, its Joseph Gatehau. You guys. Thats crap. Idiotic self deluded fucking fifteen year olds should not be allowed mobile phones!! I mean, its no Laura Gissara but still. Thats pretty fucked, right there. Joseph is barely articulate and Kyle gets an 'amen' from me in the peanut gallery, when he advises Joseph to step it the hell up and that he can't coast on cute anymore. G makes me much much happier by then announcing Bobby Flynn is through and I've worked it out - dude is a spaceman from another planet and his hair is actually another sentient being who is filtering out all the pollution and pesticides in our atmosphere and keeping Bobby alive. Bobby thanks god. I'm almost certain he's taking the piss.

Onto the girls!!

First up is Raechel Lee, another 'new' contestant we've never seen before, she's an absolute cutie and she's singing another Australian anthem - Paul Kelly's Dumb Things. Its not a bad choice for her voice, she has a strong Aussie rock pub voice crossed with Kasey Chambers. She's extremely ocker and is a tad breathy. She also gets some pitch problems towards the end, most likely because of the breathiness, and there's a quaver to her voice and I can't tell if its a natural one or if its nerves. Mark loves her Aussie twang and Marcia also compliments the individuality that she brings to the competition. Kyle says he's a fan of her voice but that the performance came off as awkward and boring. G shoots back that Kyle just has a problem with any music released before 1999. To give us some background on Raechel, G talks with her about the fact that she's played the US, Canada and Nashville (which I always thought was in the US . . . its okay G, you're pretty) with her family band. Hmmm. I'm going with natural quaver and not nerves . . . I don't think she'll get in tomorrow night, but they should Wildcard the little spitfire.

Sidebar : I was at dinner with grandparents and so had to ask my father to tape Idol for me - he objected quite strenuously to having to tape 'that crap' but as I'm only in town for another couple of days visiting, he decided to pony up and make me happy - so I'm watching this on tape . . .

Lavina Williams. Lavina, Lavina, Lavina. Sigh. I take my natural Darwinesque aversion to her sister and tuck it into a box under my chair. I WILL try to be neutral, I WILL. She's much easier on the eye than her sister but by god she's singing Aretha Franklin's Natural Woman??!! I have to pause the tape here whilst my poor addled brain recovers from the pain that another Williams is singing Aretha. Midway through her performance I freak myself out completely by taking back EVERYTHING I EVER SAID ABOUT THIS GIRL. She is NOT her sister. Her voice is astounding clear, her tone is incredible, she performs one of the best key changes I have EVER seen attempted on this show and the glory note is perfect. It was everything an Aretha deserves. I would take every touchdown Holden ever gave her screeching sister and give them all to Lavina. I can't believe this, but I love this performance. I love it. I am so fucking confused right now. Marcia babbles about a song steeped in tradition and she tore it up. Mark babbles about how he loves you 'Williams' girls', that she showed impressive range but that she's missing 'fire'. I'm still punchdrunk from loving her and mistakenly think he's talking about Serena and Venus and something to do with their backhand drop shot. Kyle loved it and then takes me back to the glory days of hating Kyle when he comments on her weight - 'you're a bigger girl' who knows how to dress - the fuck? No, she is not a bigger girl, you git. He then kind of makes it better by saying that normally she looks like a hip hop chick who would stab you and I almost fall off my chair laughing. Lavina calls it all a humbling experience and I am once again astounded at how different she actually is to her sister, but to be fair, it took a couple of weeks before Emily got that higher than thou, attitude of enititlement that drove me bug eyed fucking crazy. I hope fervently that Lavina, that way does not go when she hits the Top 12, because even without the fans of her sister who will randomly vote for her anyway, she's in the Top 12, no question.

Next up is Moulin Rouge dancer Rebecca Pearce who is doing Breathless from Days of Thunder. There is some discussion when she starts as to whether this is from Days of Thunder or from Top Gun, but that is quickly forgotten when it becomes blatantly clear that Rebecca is flubbing it. Her singing is flowery and weak, her power notes are insipid, she's pitchy, she's blah. She's history. (At this point I think I've seen the worst performance of the night but oh, how wrong can one person be??). Mark adds insult to injury by telling her (and lets face it, she's painfully aware how bad she was) that it was like the talent section of a Wagga Wagga beauty contest. Marcia says she knows nerves played a big part in it and is sympathetic. Kyle absolutely hated it and tells her it was a dog's breakfast and he's really disappointed. She takes it well, but later when they show the others standing on the balcony she's clearly crying her eyes out. No Wildcard, no nothing darl, sorry.

Spunky Jess Griffin has made a terrible error in judgement. She's singing Christina Aguilera's song Fighter. This is such a balls to the wall song and I firmly believe that Xtina's the only one who can sing it with any conviction. Jess starts out off the beat annnnnnnnnd stays there. She is obviously flustered that she fucked up so quickly that she gets pitchy and breathy and looks like she's going to burst into tears. Its an absolute mess, this is such a shame because every other time we've seen Jess, she has exuded confidence and charisma. I want to look away when she kind of taps herself on the forehead as if to say 'stupid' three quarters of the way through the song. She's right though. Stupid. Marcia and Jess "woahhhh" at each other and agree that "that was a hard one". Jess sighs that she lost control and Marcia actually critiques someone - "you were ahead of the band, behind the band, you didn't trust them and you let yourself down". Thats the Marcia equivalent of beating your adopted daughter whilst screaming 'no wire hangers' . . . (only Joan Crawford fans will get that one . . . ) Mark "oh Jess"s for about thirty seconds while she practically begs for his forgiveness, he notes that she can't let nerves get to her like that because she'll crash and burn (gee, you think??) but he still 'digs' her. Mark, can you 'dig' her out of the grave she just dug herself? Huh? Little help? Kyle says it was a joke and disastrous and he doesn't want to go on about it but he kind of does a little. G asks her that if she still worked in a pizza shop, what kind of pizza would that be? She stumbles on the answer but finally comes out with a gour-mess. I applaud her chutzpah but don't think she's a real contender to get in the Top 12 or even Wildcard.

Little Lisa Mitchell's own personal Idols are Clare Bowditch and KT Tunstall - awesome choices, fuck she's got impeccable musical taste (the fact that they are similar to my own have nothing to do with the price of tea in China. Shut up.) She's singing her Seymour Centre solo perf song, Ben Harper's Diamonds on the Inside. She's sitting down and looks like she should be holding on to a guitar. I do love her singing, she does a very good job, the odd pitch issue but nothing to get upset about, her voice sounds laid back but she can barely stand to look into the camera - she fleetingly glances at it every now and then but that's it. She's remarkably awkward on stage and I don't know how she'll go performing other people's songs week after week. Of course Mark, who has picked on every other performer who has shown any interaction weakness on stage, completely ignores Lisa's ineptness, calling it instead a naive delicateness that he wants to protect. You want to protect her naivity Mark? How about telling her to go home and come back when she's a couple of years older? How about you don't let her put herself into a competition where people like me will bay for her blood at the first sign of vulnerability? I speak the truth, I think she's out of her depth, no matter my regard for her voice, can't this wait a year or two? Finish high school Lisa, I beg you. Poor Poor Casey. Marcia says some people are just born to do this - this? a reality singing show? - and calls her the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard come out of Marcia's mouth - 'baby girlfriend'. Ugh. I get full body shudders. Kyle thinks she's going to win and makes the audience give her a standing ovation because she "could be the best thing ever to come out of this country musically". Whatever dude. Lisa's eyes are huge and a little starstruck looking and G brings her down gently, teasing her that she's "16 years old, you look great, you sing great, you're a tv star AND you've got a pony!! What more could you want??" She laughs appreciatively and looks not a little relieved that not everyone is putting an enormous amount of pressure on her. Kyle. Oh, but she's a shoe in for Top 12. If the audience doesn't put her in, the judges most definitely will.

Last, but not least is Lydia Decker. She's singing Whitney Houston's One Moment In Time and its good if not a little same old same old. She's a proficient singer, but she's hampered by the fact that she's on the same show as Lavina who has done the same thing but did it a thousand times better. She's sincere and her glory note is very very good but no-one is really moved by it. Shame really, she has a good voice. Marcia loved it, the theatrics, the pacing were all great but Mark dismisses her as just another 'good' singer and that she has the same voice as a hundred different singers in this country and there isn't really room for them all. Hell, its along the same lines as what I said but I didn't say it to her face. Kyle says Marks full of it and that she's cooking with gas. Wildcard.

Thats it. Frankly it shouldn't be anyone else but Lisa and Lavina but I hope that Raechel and Lydia Wildcard. The Wildcard round will be made up of eight of the leftover contestants and four of them will go through. I'd like those odds if that was me. I assume that it will be two from each night picked as Wildcard . . .

. . . and I'd be terribly horribly wrong. Of course it isn't anywhere near that fair. The judges stack the competition by making SIX of the Wildcard contestants boys - Chris Murphy, Nathanial Willemse, Guy 'Mutto' Mutton, Chris Graffiti, Ricky Muscat and Brendan Boney, leaving only two boys out, Paul Vercoe and James Steele. Unbelievably they only put through TWO girls - one of my favourites Amanda Streete and country girl Klancie Keough. Although this makes the likelihood of Amanda of getting in that much better and I would hope that of the boys that Chris Murphy will make it through. But I am confused. They deliberately choose twelve boys and girls and made them compete against each other so there would be an even number of both sexes in the competition and now this? The odds of both Amanda and Klancie getting through are incredibly unlikely, so we're most likely to see three boys and one girl. I just don't get it. But I'm kind of past trying to work out what this show is trying to do . . . and obviously Lavina and Lisa got through from the previous night, but you knew that . . . right?? See you at Wildcard.

TallulahBelle out.