American Idol: She-woman man-haters club

A review of last night's "American Idol" coming up just as soon as I rocks the onesie...

So the men and women had to switch nights this week to accommodate for Crystal Bowersox's ailment, and while I like Crystal enough that I wouldn't want to lose her from the competition for a non-voting reason, I also do wonder if the show would have gone to this much trouble for someone who isn't an obvious frontrunner.

But while I worried that the last-minute switch would be one stumbling block too many for the uninspiring field of male contestants, the guys didn't seem too hurt by having to push up their performances a day. Most of them were significantly better than they were last week, especially Alex Lambert, who used his guitar as a kind of security blanket to get over the uncomfortable stage fright he had last week.

On the other hand, none of them was exactly looking like the next "American Idol," were they? I expect Casey James and Andrew Garcia to go far in the competition, but mostly the improvement between the weeks had the guys going from awful to competent but bland.

And the judges aren't invested in any of them, giving them conflicting advice from week-to-week. Tyler Grady was awful last week and deserved to go home, but he had a point that the judges attacked him for doing the exact same thing they claimed to love in Hollywood. And I'm baffled by what they're doing to Andrew, where they're holding his Hollywood success against him in a way I've never heard them treat another contestant. Last week, they complained that they were already tired of his acoustic rearrangements - even though many viewers had never heard them before (and certainly not as often or as at length as the judges had) - and then when he switched things up this week, they basically told him to go back to doing more things like "Straight Up."

On the plus side, Ellen was much livelier and more willing to criticize than she was last week. Putting her in between Randy and Kara helped, because she always seems more comfortable when she doesn't have to lead off the discussion, particularly if they're discussing someone who was bad.

What did everybody else think?