Relive the best and worst ‘Idol’ moments

Worst understanding of local idioms
When booted Louisville auditioner Mark Mudd told the judges to "Take care and be careful," they reacted like he'd threatened to sneak into their homes and kill their pets. In fact, what he meant was something akin to "Have a nice day." Maybe next year the judges should provide phrase books for the cast and crew before each audition city.

Worst costume
Whoever decided that Allison Iraheta should take a page from the Pebbles Flintstone fashion handbook one week should be looking for a new line of work. The song she chose was “Don’t Speak,” but the outfit screamed louder than Adam singing in his upper register. Honorable mention goes to most of the judges' outfits this season.

Worst collapse
The "Idol" set fell apart before the May 6 show, nearly causing the show to be canceled. Honorable mention: Alexis Grace, who went from being an early favorite to finishing in eleventh place and out of the "Idol" summer tour.

Worst item of clothing
Randy’s red-velvet bow tie that topped off his finale formalwear. It looked like he got 98 percent of the way dressed and then found some long-forgotten Father’s Day present to finish the outfit.

Worst judging
About 100,000 contestants tried out for the show. Let's assume half of those were women. Given a 50,000-person talent pool, were Allison Iraheta, Lil Rounds, Alexis Grace, Megan Joy and Jasmine Murray really the five best? All apologies to the quintet, but when an entire gender is gone before the final three, it might be time to reevaluate the selection process.

Worst prediction
Some dope who writes for MSNBC said in March that “There’s nothing about [Kris] Allen that stands out, either vocally or in his background, so he’ll need a groundbreaking performance quickly to have a chance at even making the 10-singer “Idol” tour this summer.” Of course, those groundbreaking performances came nearly every week the rest of the way, a big reason that he was crowned the winner.

Craig Berman is a writer in Washington.

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