Mitch Macdonald says goodbye to Drew Wright, who was elminiated, as Theo Tams looks on during iCanadian Idol. (Canadian Press)

Drew Wright not only sang Cuts Like a Knife this week -- he felt it.

Canadian Idol fans neglected to give the Top 3 contender -- a 28-year-old house painter from Collingwood, Ont. -- the ridiculous number of votes he needed to advance to the karaoke competition's final round.

Talk about a slash to the heart. Not only did rocker Wright ace the aforementioned Bryan Adams classic on Monday's performance episode, but, along with frontrunner Theo Tams, he lost to perma-happy four-eyed charmer Mitch MacDonald -- whose continuous existence in this year's Idol instalment remains to be explained.

I had set my sights on Wright for the Top 2 since, oh, say, three weeks ago? Then again, that was back when I thought Earl still had a chance and Mookie was going to win this whole thing. Sigh.

Sure, the ruggedly handsome songster crossed the line when he covered Blind Melon's No Rain way back, but he showed promise with his Anne Murray and John Mayer revamps last week, and had three out of four judges raving (you can guess who the unimpressed panelist was) with Cuts Like a Knife -- the first of two Adams hits he performed on Monday.

His second track -- the ueber-romantic I'm Ready -- didn't go over quite as well, especially with you-know-who Werner.

"Honestly to me it felt like you were playing the part of Bryan Adams in 'Bryan Adams: The Musical,' " judge Zack explained. "I just really didn't get any honest intensity out of it. It felt very forced and theatrical to me."

With Wright's competitors each receiving a little nitpicking of their own -- Tams for his inexplicable performance of When You're Gone (yes, the one where Adams teamed up with a Spice Girl) and MacDonald for his somewhat insincere renditions of Heat of the Night and When You Love Someone -- it could have been anyone's game. But the voting results (all 3.7 million of them) revealed on Tuesday's episode just didn't fall in Wright's favour.

While I would have been a bitter mess, Wright kept it cool after host Ben Mulroney delivered the verdict. Hey, at least he had the chance to work with Adams -- a fortysomething version of himself, as far as appearances go -- before he got the cane. After helping the kids through their tunes on Monday, mentor-de-jour Adams broke into song on Tuesday's show, taking us back with 1997's 18 til I Die and recent single She's Got a Way.

Viewers were also treated to trips to the hometowns of each of the final three men standing. Tams did a heckuva lot of press, MacDonald's mom cried for the cameras, and poor Wright did a whole lot of baby kissing for, well, nothing.

Yes, it was another rather uneventful week in the CanIdol universe. But don't fret kids -- next week's finale is bound to bring some sort of excitement to the airwaves, if only because Mariah Carey and her latest gravity defying minidress will be present. John Legend, Hedley, last year's "champ" Brian Melo and Idol mentor Jully Black will also perform in the two-hour spectacle airing Wednesday. Oh yeah, and they're going to pick a winner too! MacDonald and Tams, both 22, go head-to-head on Monday's last performance episode. Colour me anxious!