The judges on ”American Idol” broke down many of the first 12 competitors to take the stage Tuesday night, saving their praise for a widower and a 21-year-old mom. Who will survive and who will go down on Wednesday night’s results show?

If “Idol” voters take their cue from the judges, the three competitors who will make it through will be Alexis Grace, Danny Gokey and either Anoop Desai, Rick Braddy, Michael Sarver or Tatiana Del Toro. The judges had very little good to say about the rest of the contestants.

As far as how much voters take their cues from the judges, that became a matter of debate on Tuesday night’s show. When his fellow panelists told Simon Cowell it was up to the voters to decide which contestants advance, Cowell had a ready reply.

“Yes, but they listen to me,” he said.

If the voters did listen to Cowell, they must like the sounds of Alexis Grace, a 21-year-old mother of one from Memphis, Tennessee. All the judges had nice things to say about Grace, who sang the Aretha Franklin hit “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You.” Even the notoriously tough Cowell told the singer she reminded him of Kelly Clarkson, who won the first season of “Idol” in 2002 and is one of Cowell’s all-time favorites.

Danny Gokey, 28, a church music director who lost his wife to congenital heart disease last year, also pleased the judges when he took the stage and sang the Mariah Carey hit “Hero.” After a number of unimpressive contestants, judge Randy Jackson called Gokey the “redeemer of the night.”

Who will the voters choose? Are there any chances for a surprise contestant like 17-year-old Stevie Wright or country singer Brent Keith to make it through, despite bad reviews from the judges? 

Next week, another dozen contestants take the stage for a second elimination round, followed by a third round of 12 the following week. With 36 contestants in all, ”Idol” still has a lot of weeding to do.

The eighth season of “American Idol” kicked off on Tuesday night, bringing back all the hijinks viewers have come to expect from the world’s most popular reality talent show.

The huddled masses of singers yearning to be the next Kelly Clarkson or Chris Daughtry came out to a sweltering Phoenix, Arizona, where the now four celebrity judges either cooed over or mocked them as only “Idol” judges can.

The new judge, Kara DioGuardi, even got into a singing faceoff with one of the contestants, a woman named Katrina Darrell who showed up in a string bikini, delighting male judges Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson and earning the scorn of DioGuardi and Paula Abdul. It’s unlikely that DioGuardi would have put her own singing pipes to work in an effort to show Darrell how it’s done, if not for the teeny weeny bikini.

“Honestly, you don’t have the chops to sing that song,” DioGuardi told the contestant, who the show dubbed “Bikini Girl.”

Bikini Girl responded by telling DioGuardi, “Your demonstration wasn’t any better.”

That set off a verbal battle between Bikini Girl and the two female judges, but in the end Darrell and her bikini made it through to the critical Hollywood round.

On a more upbeat note, 23-year-old legally blind singer Scott MacIntyre also advanced to the next round, wowing all four of the judges with his version of Billy Joel’s “And So It Goes.” MacIntyre is not only a talented singer, he told the judges that he started college at Arizona State University at age 14 and graduated at 19. Now he can add national TV exposure to his resume.

When MacIntyre walked out after his audition, show host Ryan Seacrest tried to give him a high-five, to Seacrest’s embarrassment since the contestant could not see the raised hand.

Despite the recent suicide of one spurned “Idol” contestant, the judges did not spare their criticism of the singers they deemed not yet ready for primetime. One singer named Michael had trouble raising his voice above a dull croak. In response, Cowell told him, “You could have been singing in Bulgarian, I couldn’t understand a word of that.”

Critics have said that “American Idol” too often exploits the failures of its try-out contestants. That became a major story in November when a woman named Paula Goodspeed who tried out for “American Idol” in 2005, killed herself from a drug overdose in front of Abdul’s home. Goodspeed apparently had a longstanding obsession with Abdul, and when she tried out in 2005 she brought along drawings she had made of the pop star.

On Tuesday’s premiere, none of the contestants seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with the judges, although one teen gushed that she was DioGuardi’s biggest fan. And there was plenty of naked ambition, and in the case of Bikini Girl — almost naked ambition.

Despite the hype around “Idol,” 10 percent fewer viewers tuned in for the season premiere last night. Could they have been put off by the idea of a fourth judge, or the promise of a kinder, gentler “Idol?”

 What did you think of the premiere?

(Writing and reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)

After all these months, is it really going to come down to “the Chosen One” after all?

David Archuleta, the teenage crooner whose satiny voice and babyfaced looks have stolen the hearts of teenage girls, was all but crowned the winner of this season’s “American Idol” by judges Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson on Tuesday night. Playing on a boxing theme the show took on to highlight the showdown between two guys named David, Cowell called Archuleta’s performance “a knockout” of his older rival, rocker David Cook.

But was it really that cut and dry? After four months of performances by scores of wannabe pop stars, dozens of dramatic contestant ousters and hundreds of millions of votes from “Idol” viewers, will it all come down to the 17-year-old who was dubbed the one to beat way back when there were 24 contestants?

It seems, after Tuesday night’s show, that the answer is yes. While the judges praised both Cook’s and Archuleta’s three performances each, they clearly favored Archuleta. It’s almost too bad, given that going into the finale, the outcome appeared far less certain than in recent seasons. Last year, for instance, Jordin Sparks’ victory over Blake Lewis was virtually set in stone before either one of them sang a note.

Cook, however, has been a serious contender this season, delivering solid rock performances week after week that recalled Season 5 contestant and current music sensation Chris Daughtry. Also, like Archuleta, Cook never landed among the show’s bottom three vote-getters all season.

Still, the quality of Archuleta’s singing and his appeal among the show’s teenage viewers is undeniable. And, having been raised watching “Idol,” his song choices were almost always impeccable.

At least Cook seemed to take the competition in stride, proclaiming on Tuesday night that the “competition’s over, we’re just having fun.” Translation: I know I’m going to be set up with a record deal whether I win this thing or not.

So get ready. There are less than 24 hours to go before we find out whether David Archuleta really is, in fact, “the Chosen One,” or whether fate will instead side with a scrappy Missouri bartender who shares his name.

Not many “American Idol” viewers expected to see Syesha Mercado make it past this week. Let’s face it, a face-off between the two Davids, Archuleta and Cook, has been considered a foregone conclusion for weeks now.

But notwithstanding the near certainty of a David showdown, it was still a shock to see Paula Abdul administer Mercado’s death sentence on Tuesday night’s episode.

The perennial “good cop” judge, who at least tells the contestant that they “look beautiful”when she doesn’t have anything nice to say about a performance, told Mercado at the end of her third performance of the night that she was probably not going to make it to the show’s finale next week.

“I don’t know if it’s going to be good enough to get into the finals of “American Idol,” Abdul said of Mercado’s rendition of Gia Farrell’s “Hit Me Up” from the movie “Happy Feet.”

Abdul tried to atone for her comment afterwards, adding: “I love you, though.”

Mercado’s second performance of the night, a cabaret-inspired version of “Fever,” was also uniformly panned by the judges, with Simon Cowell saying she missed her chance to prove that she can be a contemporary recording artist and would probably regret choosing that song tomorrow.

Oh well, hopefully Syesha will be taking comfort in the fact that Paula loves her while she packs her bags tonight.

Truth be told, the night wasn’t stellar for the Davids, either. Cowell said Dan Fogelberg’s “Longer,” which the show’s producers chose for David Archuleta to sing, was “something you would choose for like a 90-year-old,” while the 17-year-old’s performance of Chris Brown’s “With You” was “a little bit like a chihuahua trying to be a tiger.”

David Cook, meanwhile, got lukewarm reviews from Randy Jackson on all three of his performances. Cowell and Abdul were kinder, with Cowell declaring at the end of the show that “David Cook wins the night.”

That may be true, but the season’s biggest battle is still to come. Davids, it’s time to step it up.

There’s no question that Syesha Mercado is one tough “American Idol” contestant.

Week after week, the 21-year-old beauty from Sarasota, Florida, has stepped up her game, delivering performances in recent episodes that many thought she wasn’t capable of. Now, despite having been among the lowest three vote-getters a whopping five times, Mercado is the only woman to have made it to the show’s Top 4.

For making it this, Mercado certainly deserves a lot of credit. On Tuesday night’s episode, judge Randy Jackson singled out the TV commercial actress after her performance of “Proud Mary” for “showing the heat late in the competition when you need it.”

Paula Abdul, meanwhile, told Mercado: “You started this competiton as a pretty girl with a big voice, and you turned into this beautiful woman with a magnetic voice and presence.”

Still, it was more than a little strange when, just before singing her second song of the evening, Mercado appeared to liken her run on “Idol” to the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.

In a pre-taped interview shown before her performance of “A Change is Gonna Come,” Mercado explained why she chose the song by legendary R&B singer Sam Cooke.

“It was released after his death in 1965 during the Civil Rights Movement, which was a very pivotal time in history. And now I’m singing it during a pivotal time in my life — Top 4, amazing experience… I’m just so thankful to still be here and this song just took on a totally different meaning for me.”

Later, Mercado broke down in tears after judge Randy Jackson said he hadn’t liked her performance, while Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell both praised her singing.

Choking back tears, she explained again that the song meant a lot to her, again referencing its links with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

“I just couldn’t stop crying, because I feel like I’ve changed a lot,” Mercado said.

Then, as she wiped the streams of tears off her face, Mercado suddenly snapped back to the harsh reality of live TV: “I probably look like crap right now,” she said.

In seven seasons of “American Idol,” Paula Abdul has definitely had her moments.

But her gaffe on Tuesday night’s episode was either the “Kookiest Paula Moment Ever” or a sign of the judges’ apparently not-so-spontaneous evaluations of contestants’ performances.

Abdul on Wednesday sought to explain the blunder as a simple misunderstanding. “We all just screwed up everything,” she told Entertainment Tonight.

It was Neil Diamond night, and after each of the show’s five remaining contestants sang their first of two songs for the evening, the judges were asked to comment on their performances.

Randy Jackson quickly rattled off his impressions, and then Abdul launched into a lengthy analysis of contestant Jason Castro’s two performances. Yes, that’s right. Abdul remembered TWO performances. When Castro, and all of the other contestants, had only performed ONCE.

“Oh my God, I thought you sang twice,” a flustered Abdul said when Jackson gently pointed out that Castro had only performed one song so far. She added: “This is hard!”

“You’re seein’ the future baby, you’re seein’ the future!” host Ryan Seacrest said.

Abdul tried to cover for the mistake by saying she had been reading her notes from both Castro’s performance and contestant David Cook’s performances.

The flub was enough to convince some fans that Abdul must have prepared her notes on both songs before the live performance.

On the “Idol” forums, some fans pondered whether the judges’ comments were a function of who the show’s producers want to win rather than the content of the performances. Others gave the show the benefit of the doubt, saying Abdul must have taken notes at the dress rehearsals

Abdul explained on Wednesday that Idol producers had thrown the judges a last minute curveball during the show.  “I am feverishly trying to write notes for every performance,” she recounted, saying her notes got mixed up.

“I was just trying to give my critique for Jason Castro, and scribbled Jason’s name, and that was David (Cook)’s. “This is live television. This is fun!,” she said.

She started. She stopped. She started again. And still, “American Idol” contestant Brooke White never seemed to get it together. In fact, does anyone even remember the rest of the performance?

White, the 24-year-old blonde songstress who has won viewers’ hearts with her bluesy voice and down-to-earth style, is almost sure to be among the show’s bottom three vote-getters this week after stumbling over the beginning of her performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “You Must Love Me.”

It was the second time this season White stopped singing and restarted a song from the beginning, this time because she forgot the words to the ballad originally performed by Madonna in the film “Evita.”

Surprisingly, White took the most heat from perennial contestant cheerleader Paula Abdul, who said bluntly:

“You must never start and stop.”

Jude Simon Cowell disagreed with Abdul, saying the move had been “brave.” But, he also warned White that “it completely threw you… you are going to be very disappointed when you watch this back.”

White’s face, with her lips pursed together and head cocked to the side, said it all following the performance. She has already been in the show’s bottom 3 twice this season, most recently last week. And with the show down to just six contestants now, there are few left who could break her fall. (Except for maybe Jason Castro after his grueling performance of “Memory” — Randy Jackson put it best when he called it a “train wreck”)

Lloyd Webber, the show’s guest mentor for the week, also must have been disappointed by White’s poor showing. Earlier this week, he told the “Los Angeles Times” that he had been “really quite impressed” with White. “I got something out of her,” he added.

Whatever it was that Sir Andrew “got” out of White during the show’s rehearsals, it sure eluded her on Tuesday night. Sorry Brooke, but the Bottom 3 looks tailor-made for you this week.

It must have been conceived as some sort of cruel joke.

For seven seasons now, the judges of “American Idol” have repeatedly told contestants to steer clear of singing songs by Mariah Carey, ostensibly because the singing competition’s up-and-coming star wannabes could never hope to measure up to one of the great voices of pop music.

So, let’s just say it was a little strange to find Carey as the guest judge on Tuesday night’s show. Because you know what that means: the contestants were allowed to perform an old Mariah song, a new Mariah song, or any other Mariah song of their choosing.

As judge Simon Cowell predicted at the beginning of the show, the night indeed turned out to be lackluster one for the girls because of the unavoidable comparisons between them and the great Carey herself. That didn’t stop Cowell from delivering his usual barbs, however.

“It was a bit like ordering a hamburger and only getting the bun,” Cowell told Brooke White after her performance of “Hero.” “In other words the vital ingredient, the bit in the middle, was missing.”

Ouch.

The other girls — Syesha Mercado, Kristy Lee Cook, and Carly Smithson — emerged without being compared to fast food, but they didn’t get any overwhelming love from the judges.

The remaining three boys, however, put the judges in a festive mood. A leather pants-clad David Archuleta’s performance of “When You Believe” was declared the evening’s benchmark by Cowell, and David Cook’s rock take on “Always Be My Baby” received a standing ovation from judge Randy Jackson.

Later, Jackson likened Jason Castro’s take on “I Don’t Wanna Cry” to “a weird beach luau,” but Paula Abdul said it was a luau that she would “love to be at.” Cowell agreed with Abdul, saying that “the guys completely won the night.”

Oh no he didn’t.  Unfortunately, oh yes he did.

Rocker David Cook bombed on “American Idol” Tuesday night with an unfamiliar song and cocky performance that made it seem like he believed he had already wrapped up the competition.

Cook chose “Innocent,” a song by Canadian alternative rock band Our Lady Peace, to sing on a night when contestants were told to choose music that inspires them. The night’s theme was intended as a preview for “Idol Gives Back,” the show’s charity special that airs on Wednesday.

Cook, wearing a white military-style jacket, strutted around without his signature guitar, finally sauntering through the audience while he sang. But judges Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell were decidedly uninspired, with Cowell calling it “a teensy weensy bit pompous.” Only Paula Abdul liked it.

To make a bad performance even worse — cringe-worthy, in fact – Cook ended it by raising a palm scrawled with the words “give back” up to the cameras. The judges praised him for that move, but Cook already appeared completely deflated after their criticisms of the performance.

It was clearly a rude awakening for Cook, who has become a favorite with the show’s fans in the last few weeks.

Another weak performance was Irish diva Carly Smithson’s take on Queen’s “The Show Must Go On.”

Smithson, who had a stellar run on the show at the beginning of the season, is clearly struggling. Cowell, who called her performance “angry,” said she may even be vulnerable to elimination this week. If that does happen, Smithson would be going home before Kristy Lee Cook, the leggy blonde country singer who has narrowly escaped the hatchet for several weeks running.

Simon Cowell plays the King of Mean on the panel of judges on “American Idol,” telling some wannabee stars they must be deaf if they think they can sing, calling others’ dancing hideous, and telling one female contestant she looked like the Incredible Hulk’s wife. But a story emerged this week that shone a new light on 48-year-old Cowell — he gave a couple whose three-year-old daughter is suffering cancer a check of $162,000 to pay off their mortgage.

The bombastic Brit, who was recently estimated by Forbes magazine to earn about $43 million  year, was so touched by the story of Madelaine Stoen when she appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s U.S. TV chat show that he declared he would be her “guardian angel.” Madelaine’s parents Amy and Randy Stoen from Claremont, Minnesota, were struggling financially after the youngster was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and would take turns traveling more than 100 miles from  home each day so she could get treatment.

After presenting the couple with a check, Cowell was quoted on the Oprah Winfrey Web site saying that he’s only just learned about the joy of giving. “I didn’t realize that. It’s taken me 48 years. It’s going to catch on, this, because it is a very, very good feeling,” he said.

Wonder if he’ll be as generous to the remaining finalists in ”American Idol.”