There’s always that episode on American Idol where Ryan Seacrest makes an announcement that leaves everyone silent with shock and awe … this was not that episode.

As hoped and predicted, American Idol welcomed Danny Gokie, Alexis Grace and Michael Sarva as the first three members of the coveted Top 12.

It was nice to see the three favorites belt out their tunes one more time, but I couldn’t help feeling bad for the rejected contestants. Not only do some of them have to be there for 45 minutes after finding out they haven’t made it, but they also have to sit there and get shown up by these people again. I’m suddenly missing the days when they used to force them to sing the song that just earned them their ticket home.

But the other nine did still get their time in the spotlight as Idol brought us the season’s first group song: I’m Yours by Jason Mraz. Apparently after seeing contestant after contestant mangle the song this year, the producers wanted to prove someone could sing it.

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Still, I have to admit I was less focused on the singing and more focused on how badly Tatiana Del Toro seemed like she wanted to just throw Casey Carlson out of the way ala Celine Dion in an SNL skit. The vision made me laugh even harder when she later told Ryan Seacrest that whether or not she made it through depended on the "power of love." But while Tatiana’s heart may "go on and on," for now, her Idol journey will not.

Unfortunately, however, we’re not done with Tatiana yet, or the rest of the "other nine" as they will have one more chance to redeem themselves come the wildcard round.

Poor Ricky Brady could be a serious threat if he wasn’t the only contestant to get zero camera time until Tuesday night, and the only one who didn’t get to have any dialogue on Wednesday’s show about his performance. I think they managed to say his name only once through the entire show and it was simply to tell him that he didn’t make it through.

But if Ricky can manage to suck up to whatever producer he ticked off and get himself some exposure he could surprise us with a wildcard win. And let’s face it, Anoop Desai is probably already practicing his pose for the Top 12 photo shoot.

But if that doesn’t work out, they can always hit up Disney World to get a feel for what it would have been like to make it to the finals.

As Ryan mentioned, Disney’s opened up a new attraction called The American Idol Experience for everyday people to go through the Idol audition process from singing for producers to performing before a live studio audience. Considering how much I like to talk about Idol, I figured it was time I walked the walked so I went to Orlando and actually did it. As you can imagine, there will be some fun footage coming soon.

But luckily I didn’t have to face off against Randy, Kara, Paula and Simon unlike the next 12 contestants who’ll be singing for their shot at three top 12 spots next week. If I had to guess early I’d say Allison Iraheta, Matt Giraud and Adam Lambert will be the next three to make it through. But after seeing how bad song choices can render even top contenders "pointless," I may be in for a surprise.