American Idol Results Show, Group 1

Ryan Seacrest announced at the beginning of the show that a record 24 million votes were cast for this show, which is a record high for this point in the season. This brings to mind how people like to complain that more people vote for American Idol than vote for the President of the United States. Let me remind everyone that you can only vote once for Pres, but you can vote as much as the buttons on your phone and your fanaticism will permit.

After some annoying judge banter the semifinalists came out and sang “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz. They did a pretty good job, but I’d say the country guys looked a little uncomfortable with the reggae beat.

They began revealing the results with a no-brainer, and eliminated Casey Carlson. No surprise. I’m sure her performance last night had everyone questioning how she made it to this stage of the competition. Stephen Fowler was no surprise either. I’m actually surprised he made it here after walking out on his last song in Hollywood Week.

Alexis Grace was the first contestant revealed to be in the top 12. No surprise for me, I think she was one of the best singers from last night. But given some of the train wrecks we witnessed, that’s not saying much.

Between Ricky Braddy and Jackie Tohn, neither of them made it through to the 12. No surprise for me about Jackie, or Ricky for that matter, but I fully expect Ricky to be one of the wild cards in a few weeks.

Anoop Desai and Michael Sarver – Michael made it through to the top twelve. Surprised that Michael made it through. I thought there were much better vocals, but I think that he must have gotten the country vote. I’m sure Anoop will be a wildcard too. Maybe Michael’s song was just better than his delivery? I’m sure enough people liked him from the auditions too to put him through. He was one that we liked.

Carly Smithson and Michael Johns from last season appeared on the show and performed a duet of the song, “The Letter.” I have to say it really didn’t do anything to make me nostalgic for the old contestants.

Brent Keith, Stevie Wright and Ann Marie Boskovich were all eliminated in one fell swoop. None of them were surprises to me, or to them by the look of things.

When the two remaining finalists were brought up, Danny Gokey and Tatiana Del Toro, I fully expected Tatiana to faint on stage for the drama of it all. When they announced that Danny was the last of the three to proceed into the final twelve, I was surprised that Tatiana didn’t make more of a spectacle of herself. I really hope that she won’t be one of the wildcards, but for the sake of good television, I’m sure they’ll put her in that pool, especially because they couldn’t keep the camera off of her during Danny’s reprise of his song.

Hopefully in the coming weeks we'll see the contestants to quite a bit better than they did this week.