As we head into the final installment of preliminary auditions tonight, a very important American Idol question needs to be asked. Is laughing, desperate, weeping Tatiana the most annoying contestant the show's ever had?

I say yes. And I don't mean because she wears stupid dresses and has a grating laugh. I mean because the producers have let her tread a tiresome line between actual singer and nyah-nyah joke all the way (well, almost all the way) to the semifinals. Yes, she's a horrible flaming wreck of a person—continually singing songburst after songburst in crazed attempts to prove her talent, long after the judges have asked her to kindly shut the hell up. But she's also by no means a terrible singer, and did pretty decently on her Whitney Houston jam last night. So what is she, nutty semifinal darkhorse, or prolonged joke that's gone on too long? Well, kinda neither.

Which means she's basically categoryless and is therefore, on this show where there's so much slogging-through to be done that one doesn't have time to stop and pause and reflect on one wild-eyed girl in a mermaid dress, rendered completely useless. Even more frustrating is that she seems to feel so entitled to all of the coverage, good or bad. Her camera-grabbing "thank you everyone on this show!!! Even the man holding the sound stick!!" exclamations of joy are soul-sinking. And her whiny, attention-sucking sadsack pleas to Randy, Paula, and new judge Giada De Laurentiis when they entered her empty hotel convention room last night were even worse. She acts like the only person in the room, which makes her merit the attention even less.

I know they'll probably get rid of her tonight. That's why they spared her yesterday, so they could do it one-on-four and get the real good closeups of her freaking-out misery. Which, I must admit, I'll enjoy a tad. But it's also just low and exploity and good god, remember when one of these people killed themselves on Paula Abdul's front lawn? So yeah. Most annoying contestant/treatment-of-a-contestant ever.

Who's your least favorite so far? And who do you actually, you know, like? I enjoy the dueling pianos guy.