American Idol Results: Danny Gokey, Alexis Grace, and Michael Sarver In, Anoop Desai Out

Last night's American Idol results show offered no real surprises, although it did offer a High School Musicial-esque group performance and a duet with what can only be American Idol's version of Sonny and Cher.

Danny and Alexis went through as predicted, and Michael Sarver took the thrid spot, beating out Anoop Desai by only 20,000 votes. Considering 24 million votes were cast overall, that's actually a pretty close margin.

They saved Danny and Tatiana for last; I can only assume they thought it might be a tension builder to see which one would get the final seat. But really, did anyone expect her to beat him? They should have saved the Anoop/Michael pairing for last, because that's honestly the one that could have gone either way.

Tatiana assumed her demure but talkative attitude last night, but when the results were revealed, she did her best to put on a crying show. While the rest of the group congratulated the three who went through, she stood in the back attempting to squeeze out a few tears and draw just little more attention to herself. Can you say "self-absorbed?"

Remember when they used to put us all through that agony of having the losers sing again?  Thankfully, we only saw Alexis, Michael and Danny sing, which reinforced that despite the goofballs, there really are some great singers this season.

We got a promotional appearance - er, I mean a guest performance - from Carly Smithson and Michael Johns. Johns has a new album coming out in May and the first single is releasing to radio soon, so of course we had the traditional American Idol commercial/guest song. Smithson and Johns have been paired up on stage repeatedly since they were voted off Idol. They look like Sonny and Cher.

We also had a recap/infomercial for the new American Idol Experience at Walt Disney World and a group performace of the song "I'm Yours" by all 12 contestants. Talk about cheesy.

Overall, it was a boring show with no big surprises. Well, I sort of expected Tatiana to take the mic from Danny and start singing in the hopes that someone - anyone! - would give her another chance. Instead, she just put her efforts into the waterworks, or lack thereof.

Next Tuesday, we hear from these 12 contestants:

Megan Corkrey
Kris Allen
Mishovanna Henson
Matt Breitzke
Allison Iraheta
Matt Giraud
Jasmine Murray
Kai Kalama
Jesse Langseth
Adam Lambert
Jeanine Vailes
Nick Mitchell (aka Norman Gentle)

Predicting who would take the first three seats was pretty easy. Next week, we have a lot of contestants that we don't know much about so we'll have to wait until the live show to see how it goes. I'm kind of hoping Norman Gentle gets through. We could use a laugh this season.

Joanne Brokaw is the host of the Gospel Soundcheck blog at Beliefnet.com. She's blogging about American Idol at NewChristianVoices.com. Check back every week for new posts and Idol updates!