Tuesday was Neil Diamond night on American Idol, but it was Paula Abdul who got all the fame. And it was not due to some extraordinary comment as a judge, but to a quite freaky gaffe she made.

Before anyone could stop her, Paula started criticizing both of Jason Castro’s songs, after he had only sung one of them.

"Oh gosh—we've never had to write these things down, uh, fast enough," Paula said. "Jason, the first song, I loved hearing your lower register, which we never really hear." All was well, but she didn’t stop here. She went on to the second song, which had only been performed in her imagination…

"Um, the second song, I felt like your usual charm, it was missing for me. It kind of left me a little empty," she added, as the public started snickering.

Both executive producer Nigel Lythgoe and stage manager Debbie Williams stood in awe, as Paula continued: "The two songs made me feel like you're not fighting hard enough to get into the top four."

The audience had started laughing openly when Randy finally broke the tension.

"Oh, they've just done the first song though, just the first one," he said.

His words were quickly followed by a sort of apologetic explanation from a confused Paula, which sounded like: "I thought you—Oh my god, I thought you sang twice!…You know what, this is hard!" She did not reveal though, which was the hard part.

"Paula, Paula, you’re seeing the future baby, " was Ryan’s elegant attempt to make a joke.

So, leaving funny Paula aside, Jason Castro performed "Forever in Blue Jeans" and "September Morning," proving once more that he is a cute, good-natured boy, with a nice voice and plenty of female fans, but…that’s pretty much all.

David Cook made a smart choice of songs, picking a couple of not-so-known Neil Diamond songs, and performing their modern rock-ish version, as expected.

Both Randy and Paula praised his vocals, Paula even predicting she was "already looking at the American Idol."

"I’m a huge David Cook fan right now because again you rocked the house tonight," Randy said, after Cook sang "All I Really Need Is You."

David Archuleta is still the judges’ favorite, no surprise here. His rendition of “Sweet Caroline” was called by Randy “da bomb,” while his second song choice, “America,” was praised by a smiling Simon. But Paula was the most enthusiastic of all.

"I love you, you were brilliant," she said, joining Archuleta’s young and screaming fan club.

Brooke White chose a fun song, "I’m a Believer," which she managed to ruin with her melancholic singing style and her voice range. Still, she managed to compensate the disaster with the second song, “I Am….I Said.”

Lucky for her, the judges loved her second performance, because anything sounded better compared to her first one.

“Brooke, I really, really hated the first song because it was like a girl’s night out at a karaoke bar, but this … is the Brooke we like, sitting behind a piano singing a very good song,” Simon said. “It wasn’t incredible, but it was a million times better than the first song.”

After her sexy red-dress performance last week, Syesha Mercado became quite boring again. Her rendition of “Thank the Lord for the Night Time” received some compliments from Paula though.

“On your second song it shows a whole different side … that’s your performance theatrical place and then, when you’re pop singing, I think you can be a toss up between Corinne Bailey Rae and Minnie Riperton,” Paula said.

Well, she also addressed Syesha as Brooke, while complimenting her, but that did not surprise anyone, after Paula’s previous major gaffe.

At the end of the show, Simon concluded the night had been quite weird, trying to make it seem like a good thing.

"By the way," he said. "This is officially the strangest show we’ve ever done. But I like that. It’s kind of a bit chaotic tonight."