We're down to 5 on Nashville Star, and I've been thinking about an effect that I'm considering turning into an official ryanwelton.com theory. We could call it the Reality TV Exposure Theory.

That theory would state that the longer one is exposed to the masses, possibly beyond his or her 15 minutes of fame, the more likely that fame is to last beyond 20. This is a convoluted way of me acknowledging that as crappy as this season of Nashville Star has been in terms of overall talent that I could see at least three of the remaining finalists having viable careers.

Schweeew. I said it. Admitting it is the first step.

Melissa Lawson got criticized a tad for oversinging Martina McBride's "My Baby Loves Me." However, after several weeks of pretty good reviews from our judges Jeffrey Steele, John Rich and Jewel, I am beginning to be able to see her on a bigger platform.

I thought she oversang it, but she also did so in order to "kill it" for the judges. My hope is that she'll forget the judges and just focus on doing her best. By a mile, she's the best vocalist this season.

Success could also come soon to Gabe Garcia, who did a fair job of singing Billy Currington's "Must Be Doing Something Right." Was it great? No. None of the performances this season have been great. However, again, I've seen enough of Garcia to be able to fathom the possibility that he'll hit it big.

And lastly, Ashlee Hewitt was basically mediocre at best on the Dixie Chicks' "Cowboy, Take Me Away." However, she looks great and is as marketable as all get out. Forget that she really can't sing. Neither can Taylor Swift.

It just doesn't matter anymore.

If you can't sing, look great. If you're not very marketable, at least you can wail a bit. And you might have the personality of a rock, but you're traditional. That's where we seem to be with the cream of this season's Nashville Star crop, and I'll leave it to you to figure out which generalization belongs to whom.

Forget about acts like Laura and Sophie and Coffey, neither of which should have ever been on the show. The former was booted from the program Monday night, leaving us with five solo acts. The latter was shown a ton of mercy as he butchered the Tim McGraw and Faith Hill love song "It's Your Love."

The Bangs, Texas, native had a hard time getting through it because the song reminded him of his late mother. And I'll cut him a break to this extent: The least painful part of the performance was when he broke down in tears. Having to hear him sing, honestly, is cruel and unusual punishment. He is perhaps the worst vocalist in the history of reality television.

Worse than Sanjaya.

Shawn Mayer isn't much better although she got pretty high marks tonight for her spunky rendition of "Before He Cheats." However, count me among the Lou Grants of this world.

We hate spunk.

With any luck, we'll end up with Ashlee, Melissa and Gabe in the Final 3. Not that I particularly like any of them. However, given that NBC did a pretty crappy job in picking contestants, generally, I'll suspend belief for a moment and presuppose that each of these three would sound a lot better and be a lot more marketable and have more personality with competent country music instrumentalists and producers surrounding each of them.

As it pertains to the entertainment world of 2008 and as it relates to my reality TV theory, we've seen enough of each them to make their success plausible. For me to suggest that nobody from this terribly underwhelming season of Nashville Star will hit it at least mildly big is to underestimate the worth of being on TV for X number of weeks in a row.

And it might not be giving a couple of these acts enough credit. The market will tell all. The market will eventually tell all.