When I finally got around to last night's telecast, it was pretty much a snore — except for Dilana, and even she has obviously softened up her look — more girly to win favor with the fans and the guys. But mostly I tried to think of a good new name for Supernova, and even that wasn't very inspiring.

Anyway, my ranking last night was Dilana, Magni, Toby and Lukas. Shows what I know. Toby and Magni were in the bottom two tonight; Toby kept in touch with his inner Billy Idol by singing "White Wedding," Magni did Hendrix's "Fire" — and Magni got sent home. Of the pair, that's understandable (although I would have dumped Lukas before either); Magni's the better musician but Toby is the party-boy singer who can front these guys.

Then on to the final three performances. Lukas does the Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" and it's good by his standards. Dilana follows with "Zombie," which she did so well when I saw her live; this performance isn't as good as that one, but it's still strong. Toby dips into the Killers catalog for "Somebody Told Me." Since the Killers are becoming one of my more favored bands, he's got to be especially convincing — and isn't really. Good stage presence again, but the vocal's bad.

Whoa! After long praise from Jason … Toby gets eliminated.

The guys stall into another commercial break. I'm feeling ambivalent. Dilana winning would be cool — but Dilana making her own album would be cooler.

And Lukas wins. And I am relieved. I am so not interested in this guy that I will feel no impulse to buy the Supernova-or-whatever CD just because I like the lead singer. I'm not even sticking around for the closing performance with the band. Let's get Dilana into the studio.

Soon enough, Storm Large will put out a CD, and it will have "What the .. " on it, and I will very happily buy it. And, at some point in the future, Supernova will put out a CD, with its new lead singer, and I won't care much.

The night after we saw Storm tear the roof off of her original song and "Suffragette City," voting viewers put her in the bottom three and the three guys from Supernova sent her packing.

That leaves a final four of Magni, Toby, Lukas and Dilana. Magni and Toby avoided bottom-three-dwelling, while Lukas and Dilana had to sing for their salvation.

Oh, yeah, the singing. Magni got to perform with Supernova, on a new track called "It's All Love" that I can barely remember less than an hour after hearing it. Toby got the encore and performed his original, "Throw It Away," from last night's show.

In the bottom three performances, Storm went with "Wish You Were Here," complete with tears and a dedication to her mother. Odd change of pace given how much she had rocked on last night's telecast. But it felt as if she knew this was her last night regardless of how well she did, so she went for something personal.

Dilana followed with "I Want You To Want Me," in a weirdly comic rendition that also suggested she saw the road home — and wanted to have some final fun before hitting it. Not even Lukas entirely attempted to beat fate; he dredged out "Headspin," his original from last night's show, to lay more groundwork for a post-"Rock Star" career.

But after all that, the guys dropped the most formidable singer of the night before, and stayed with a group where no one seems terribly likely to overshadow them. Toby and Magni have both dared to be uninteresting in service of their larger goal, Lukas has rarely managed to be interesting once you get past the surface.

Dilana's once formidable presence has been diminished by a deliberate humbling from the show's producers and editor. The old Dilana with Supernova would be challenging, daring — and possibly more dramatic onstage than the band itself, certainly outspoken offstage. But, once again, we're seeing that the band wants no challenges from an outsider. None too subtly, Dilana has been told that survival depends on knowing her place.

Storm was it tonight.

Toby wasn't bad either, because he made an excellent tactical decision. But let's start by clearing up something about Storm's original, which the show's graphic called "Ladylike" and which Storm had to sing as "What the What Is Ladylike." That second "what" is, as you might imagine, an earthier word — the one that starts with an f and is not as a rule heard on CBS. The song would sound better with the original word, but it was pretty massive even when bowdlerized.

That said, back to the beginning of the show. The recap had more drama with Dilana, followed by the news that she had ripped a calf muscle. She performed anyway, at times hopping on one leg as if she was about to launch a Ralph Macchio move.

Each singer did one cover and one original. Dilana's cover, "Behind Blue Eyes," started well, went bad in the middle (when she lapsed again into that Stevie Nicks-singing-through-a-kazoo vocal), then went back on course. B overall. Her original, "Supersoul," was one of those everyone-hates-me-but-I'm-strong songs favored by rock stars gone paranoid and thin-skinned. It was unworthy of the more confident Dilana of earlier in "Rock Star," although I liked a lot of her performance. B minus.

Magni next. Strange pairing of "Back in the USSR" and an original rocker, "When the Time Comes," that was sufficiently similar to the Beatles' track for Tommy to ask about it. I gave Magni a C on "Back" and a C plus on "When the Time Comes," but I kept feeling that his performances were more tactical than awe-inspiring; he was trying to demonstrate that he could do the party-rock-boy thing as ably as Toby. But while I think Magni's better overall, Toby is more at ease channeling Billy Idol.

Storm. The dirty girl was back. You could tell the way the camera jumped during her incendiary "Suffragette City" that the show was having to dodge more provocative moves than they let on the air. She probably would have lit it up without Dave Navarro accompanying, but having him onstage was her license to kill. And she sang great. A. Then "Ladylike," which sounded like a new anthem for every girl viewer with too much eye makeup and a collection of black T-shirts. A plus.

Lukas. "Living on a Prayer," stripped, acoustic, mannered, boring. C minus. The original was "Headspin." Better than the cover, with some catchy parts. C plus.

Toby still isn't all that interesting a singer. But what he did well was come up with songs that the band could just crush — the Killers' "Mr. Brightside" and his own "Throw It Away." All he had to was keep up with the melody, prowl the hall and not get in the way of the band. Then the people who remembered him might think he was good, too — but mostly they would remember the cumulative sound. And that's what Supernova means when the guys talk about wanting a singer who fits: a singer who doesn't stink but who also isn't going to overshadow them. I'd give Toby a B on "Throw It Away" and a C plus on "Brightside" (mainly because I kept hearing the Killers in my head as he sang). But he could have been a lot worse and still nearly closed the deal.

But what the what do I know?

Things seem right for a multiple elimination tonight — so many contestants, so few weeks left. And midway through the show we've had a surprise of sorts: Everyone except Magni has been "at risk" in the vote.

Before that announcement, we got Lukas singing with Supernova on a new song that had me making a list of combinations I would go see before Lukas with Supernova. There were many, including in reverse order of importance:

6. Lukas with the House Band.

5. Toby with the House Band.

4. Magni with the House Band.

3. Storm with the House Band.

2. Dilana with Supernova.

1. Dilana with the House Band.

Toby, by the way, got the encore.

Ryan's the first one in the bottom three. He opts for "Baba O'Riley." Horribly, horribly so.

Storm's next in the bottom three. She's making it seem OK, taking the chance to sing again. "Helter Skelter" is the tune. Marvelous is the performance. I am ready to change my list.

3. Dilana with Supernova.

1 (tie). Dilana or Storm with the House Band.

But I'm getting a bad feeling about Dilana's fate…

And yes, she is in the bottom three. Does "Psycho Killer" for her song. Probably the worst I have ever heard from her.

But they can't take her down on musicianship overall. I'm imagining a speech from the guys about her not being a team player to rationalize her rejection…

Whew. It's Ryan. And only Ryan.

The Dilana melodrama continued tonight, and I'm not buying it. As the field of singers gets smaller (six tonight), the show wants more narrative to fill the hour. And, I still suspect, the show would like to dampen Dilana's vote totals some, or at least give the appearance of dampening it, so viewers go to the final show with a little suspense. But she still comes across as the most logical person to front Supernova, and by drawing out her drama, "Rock Star" also let her close the show. Though she wasn't, to my great surprise, the best performance of the night, maybe not even second best.

To the scorecard: Lukas led off with "Lithium," prefaced by the acknowledgement that Dilana had done it before. In fact, this "fan vote" night found a lot of singers performing songs that other singers had done before. Maybe that's meant to let fans see the contrast in styles and ability more clearly, but it still makes me think the show didn't license many songs.

Anyway, Lukas did a lot of posturing, showed a lot of attitude, went from mild to menacing — and I was still pretty much bored by it. (And to all of you would-be musicians in the audience, if you believe in doing that soft/screaming/soft contrasting stuff, check out the legendary Cactus performance of "You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover." From 1970. All groundwork laid. Hard to top, too.) Lukas gets a C.

Magni. "I Alone." OK, I like Magni, and not just because he downplayed the scratch on his head. He's able to invoke Cat Stevens and rock hard. But when he went into the crowd, it felt phony — strolling through but not making contact. Reminded me of a time the bride saw Jim Brown at Cleveland airport; he walked through the crowd, and the crowd carefully made way for him. C plus for Magni.

Ryan, "Clocks." By this performance, I made a note about "comic book night," because all three of the performances so far had their cartoony moments, and Ryan was the worst caricature. I'd give him a C, and most of that is for the House Band, which killed. I'd go see them play this song anywhere, with or without Ryan.

Storm. "Bring Me to Life." The no-argument best performance of the night. Amazed that the judges were harsh. She's a terrific singer and dramatic to boot, and this was high drama. If the House Band was playing "Clocks" on one side of town, and Storm was starring in "Evita" on the other, I'd go see Storm in "Evita."

Toby got a double-dip tonight, backing Storm and then doing "Rebel Yell" on his own. Doing it reasonably well, too. But bringing the women onstage was clumsy, broke his momentum in the song and made the remainder look terribly unspontaneous. I didn't buy the women's enthusiasm for a second. This would have been a B, but the stunt dropped it to B minus.

Dilana. "Mother Mother." Technically, pretty good. And the showmanship — aside from some hokey climbing on the set and the band — was another reminder of why she'd fit with Supernova. But it didn't do it for me overall. B, maybe, B minus. Too much melodrama setting it up.

The quickie vote results at the end of the show had Ryan, Lukas and Storm in the bottom three.

All told, I was disappointed in "Rock Star," especially after sampling "Celebrity Duets." So many things wrong with that show. The judges — David Foster, Little Richard and Marie Osmond — were giving a lot of the singers a free ride on this special premiere. Marie is calculatingly sweet and Little Richard was obviously told not to talk too much, but Foster was a tart presence on "American Idol" and I expected more here. I also fear one of those how-they've-grown arcs is already in the works, keeping the hideous Carly Patterson around just to chart her progress from bad singer to — well, based on that first number, I'm not convinced she'll grow all that much.

I have more of the show to see, but in what I've seen, my favorite moments were Lucy Lawless singing (because she can), Smokey Robinson (because Hal Sparks at least had the good sense to know Smokey was going to crush him long before the duet began) and Chris Jericho's awkward body language with Lee Ann Womack. Womack was having none of his reaching out during their song, and had to be stopped from fleeing the stage when the song was over.

Pretty strange to see Dilana apologizing all over the place on Wednesday night's "Rock Star: Supernova" telecast. Everything she said — and apologized for — was just a variation on themes she was hitting in mid-July when she talked to several larger gaggles of reporters visiting the mansion. (See my previous post, Notes from the Dilana Fan Club, "Beacon TV" Division.)

I am sure that every week they have had footage of her "helping," playing mind games and trying to intimidate. If they're just pulling that stuff out now, then she is miles ahead in the voting and the show wants to bring her back into the polling pack by hurting her image.

What they're missing is that her image is that of a fearless, brassy woman who pulls no punches and can play with the boys — so of course she'll talk trash. She wants to scare people. Add that she can sing, and she is the most obvious choice to front this band. And TV isn't dramatic when the result is so obvious.

Well, we finally got to hear a Supernova song, called "Leave the Lights On," and I get why Tommy Lee invoked T.Rex when describing the band's sound to me. Liked the tune, too.  Dilana got to sing it, and fit in seamlessly with the band. In fact, while the show was careful to bill the performance as "Supernova Featuring Dilana" — to make clear the lead singer isn't finally set — she was so good, the guys better be ready for a day when the billing is more like "Dilana and Supernova."

Dilana's singing with the band seemed to guarantee she wouldn't get the encore, too, and she didn't. That went to Ryan, so we got another play of his "In the Air Tonight." Authoritative, the string section cooked, he notched it up from the Tuesday telecast — and I'm still not enthralled.

Bottom three contenders: Zayra, Patrice, Toby, Storm and Magni. Magni? Maybe there was white-suit backlash. (See my post below for what I thought of last night's telecast.)

Zayra is the first official three-bot. She performs "Razor Blade" by Blue October. Somewhere between 10 and 30 seconds in, I am praying for her to get kicked off.

Patrice next. "Celebrity Skin." Tired of the song, and I still question her range, but I've got goosebumps by the time she's done. This is a real nothing-left-to-lose performance. Beats the daylights out of Lukas's earlier version.

Magni. Gotta be the suit. And, making this a we-aren't-as-bad-as-Lukas night, he goes with "Creep." Holy mighty crap. Lukas should be very, very afraid.

If these guys keep Zayra after what Magni and Patrice have done, then (a) they don't care who wins or (b) they've already decided on one of the others — probably Dilana — and are keeping people around simply for non-musical entertainment value.

Zayra gets bounced. There is some order in the "Rock Star" universe.

Maybe it was the trip to Vegas. Maybe it's being down to eight contestants. Tuesday's ''stripped down, acoustic" version of "Rock Star" felt less like a battle to front Supernova than a demonstration that the singers are going to have careers in music even if it doesn't involve singing with Gilby, Tommy and Jason.

Zayra started the show with an original, "Lluvia de Mar," and it was actually a performance I didn't hate — perhaps because I had no previous version to compare it to. But it also seemed as if it was meant for "Rock Star: Celine Dion" or the like, and it dragged as it went along. Tommy was gentle when he said he wasn't sure if the song was right for the band. Wasn't really right for me. Grade: C.

Magni followed with Bowie's "Starman," and man, did I get a Vegas vibe off his singing on the verse — and that Thin White Duke suit he was wearing. I liked him better on the chorus than the verse, but the verse was still oddly entertaining. Considering how much he bored me in the early going, either Magni's improved or I've gotten used to him. B plus.

Patrice's "Message in a Bottle" was one of her better performances, at least at the beginning. She ran out of steam — and power — as she went along. But she still stepped up pretty well (and the band had a serious groove behind her). B.

Lukas finally seems to have ditched the evil-wizard attitude of the early going, and he was really personable doing "Hero." I just didn't connect with the song. C plus.

Storm, Storm, Storm. The darling of Google had a no-win situation — a worn-out song ("I Will Survive"), in fact a worn-out song associated with disco, and one that she had to do acoustically to boot. Still, if I ever had to hear that song again, I would rather hear it this way — with edge and some vulgarity — than in a freeze-dried Gloria Gaynor rendition. So where does that leave me? Storm did really well with an acoustic rendition of a disco song I am sick of. I wasn't as hostile as the judges, but — while giving her an A for effort — the performance overall gets a C.

Toby sang, GIlby played, the song was Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" — and for the first time in the show, I really wanted to hit the fast-forward button. Toby had a few moments but not enough to merit more than a C, C minus from me.

Ryan. "In the Air Tonight." A very similar situation to Storm's. Song that's stuck too deep in all our heads. Not much to be done with it. He's got authority, and the judges like pinning the how-far-you've-come badge on him, but I didn't really need to hear this. C.

Dilana closed the show with Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle." Not my favorite song. Not my favorite performance by her (and she hashed some lyrics), or of the night. (Magni gets the nod, and believe me, I'm surprised to say that.) I worry over her lapses into Stevie Nicks-ish vocal mannerisms. The ending could have been more dramatic. B, although she's still my overall fave.

My girl Dilana earned major points tonight, thanks to the other singers' fear of a Tommy/Patrice situation. Last week, you'll recall, Patrice ended up in the bottom three when she sang along to Tommy Lee's drumming, with a widespread view that she was overshadowed by the drummer — a perception fueled by very Tommy-friendly lighting and editing.

Anyway, this week offered a chance to perform with Gilby on the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again." While I can see someone wanting to pass because the song has become a bit trite — indeed, "CSI" has done severe damage to the Who canon through overexposure — the given reason, and not a good one, was that nine of the singers — nine wusses — didn't want to risk what happened to Patrice.

Dilana took the song, took the stage with Gilby and sounded just fine. Not my favorite Dilana performance but good enough. I'll give it a B plus.

Next up: The unfortunate Jill, unfortunately performing "Mother Mother" and making me wish that they'd replayed Dilana instead. D.

Then Ryan, hot off a showpiece a week ago, showing off again with stagecraft on "Paint It Black." But I wasn't impressed. C.

Storm, "We Are the Champions." Another akkkk choice, because the song is heard sooooo much. Her vocal was not consistently strong, but she knows how to work a crowd. B minus.

Zayra, "All The Young Dudes." Skin-tight gold unitardy-suit, top hat, giant boots recalling Elton in "Pinball Wizard." Last week, she was hilariously terrible. This week, merely terrible. F.

Josh. Having ducked the Gilby thing, he seems to be in a jam when Tommy decides to play with him; oourse, that assumes that he didn't find this out, oh, in rehearsal. They've sure worked out a lot of lighting for Tommy. Not as much as it seemed with Patrice a week ago, though. And as bored as I usually am by Josh, his work on STP's "Interstate Love Song" seems livelier than usual. He still looks half asleep when he's asked to talk, but the song's all right. C plus.

Magni's gotten a lot of sympathy footage already, with his woman and child having arrived; they were in the mansion footage at the beginning of the show, and they're in the audience for the performance. (Thank goodness someone gave the kid headphones.) Song: "The Dolphin's Cry." Acoustic, solo, able, but I'm still not totally magni-fied. B.

Patrice. "Instant Karma." Feels like a big mistake, and she starts badly, and falls back on a fair amount of shouty singing, which would have worked for John Lennon but not quite for her. Tough for me, because she has some likability. I just don't think you could see that likability in the nosebleed section of some arena. C.

Lukas, "Creep." Well, there's my whole analysis.

All right, I listened to the performance and thought he was good until he got to the big shout near the end, when he reminded everyone that, as a rock singer, his range is quite limited. I give him a C, but that's a pretty high mark for a performer I really hate.

Toby closes with "Burning Down the House." Oh, dear. Well, the band was unbelievable behind him. And he got better as he went along. I might have to listen to this one again, but for now I give it a C plus (and thought the megaphone bit sort of worked).

I'm feeling much less bored this week than I did last. Considerable improvement in the singing, it seemed, as if everyone has finally figured out that this is a competition every week.

Because of work commitments, I haven't seen an installment of "Rock Star" for a couple of weeks. So it was a pleasure tonight to get back to the show, although I was doing some work again and saw it somewhat piecemeal on first airing before sitting down at the DVR to review what I had missed.

I remain firmly in the Dilana faction (see "Notes from the Dilana Fan Club…" post on July 17). She's got style, she's got pipes and she works the audience. Tonight's performance of "Can't Get Enough of Your Love" wasn't as stunning as her "Zombie" but it was still top shelf.

But I'm getting ahead. In order of performances on the telecast:

– Patrice ("Higher Ground") had Tommy playing drums with her, and the camera work was as much about him as it was about her. This may not be a bad thing, though, since her stage presence was a lot better than her singing. Grade: C.

– Josh ("Santeria") has bored the daylights out of me before, and he did it again tonight. Grade: Zzzz.

– Dilana ("Can't Get Enough") is one of the biggest reasons I tune in, and this was worth watching twice. B plus.

– Toby ("Pennyroyal Tea") sent me to the fast-forward button almost as quickly as Josh. Another Zzzz.

– Zayra ("867-3509/Jenny") did not merely give a horrible performance. She gave a transcendently horrible performance. For that reason, I'd keep her around instead of some of the more pedestrian performers. Grade: F for vocals, A for hilarity. (And I'd like to hear the great Val Haynes do that arrangement for real.)

– Magni ("Clocks") is better than I remember him, but still a C-plus kind of guy.

– Jill ("Don't You Forget About Me") is a C. Tries hard, but nothing extraordinary.

– Ryan ("Losing My Religion") went for intensity, a different spin on a familiar song, but I ended feeling as if I had been dragged through sludge. Sometimes a song is perfect in its original form. C minus.

– Lukas ("Celebrity Skin") has coasted on style the couple of times I have seen him, without much vocal skill to back it. Same thing tonight. D.

– Storm ("Changes") went wobbly in the middle of the song. But she's still a force on this show — and I believed that before I googled. B minus.

– Dana ("Baba O'Riley") closed the show. I don't know why. Must have been her turn in the rotation. C minus.