With 11 contestants left, only a fool would try to handicap “American Idol” (7 p.m., Fox). So here I go.

Nadia Turner is the clear favorite. She’s mature yet spirited. She always puts on a great stage show, and her outfits are so great she should release her own line of clothes. But I always get nervous about early front-runners. Will she be cursed by Simon Cowell’s awkward meat metaphor? Last week he called her “steak” in a room full of “hamburger.” I tend to think of her as a free-range free bird in a kitchen full of Chicken McNuggets.

Here are my picks for the top five: Nadia, of course, followed in no particular order by Carrie, Vonzell, Anthony and Scott.

Anthony Fedorov is hardly the best performer, but he has that non-threatening-boy thing working for him. That’s no small advantage on a show watched by millions of preteen girls with their mothers. John Stevens rode that constituency well into last spring’s competition. And Clay Aiken almost won it all.

I’ve been rooting for Scott Savol from the beginning. He’s the least “Idol”-like contestant imaginable. After weeks of glamorous extreme makeovers he still looks like someone you’d cast as a prison guard. But, man, can he sing.

Vonzell Solomon is also here to the end. She acquitted herself quite well last week while performing the spectacularly difficult Bacharach/David song “Anyone Who Had a Heart.”

While her performances can be bland, you have to like Carrie Underwood’s voice and country-girl nonchalance.

Tonight’s highlights

• A mission in matchmaking on “Gilmore Girls” (7 p.m., WB).
• A mob turncoat needs emergency care before delivering key testimony on “House” (8 p.m., Fox).
• Only five remain on “The Starlet” (8 p.m., WB). But they may still outnumber the show’s audience.
• A bias case pits one Arab-American against another on “Judging Amy” (9 p.m., CBS).
• A teen may be carrying a cult leader’s child on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (9 p.m., NBC).