People sure take American Idol seriously! 25 million voted last night, choosing the next three singers to advance to the top 12, joining Alexis Grace, Danny Gokey, and Michael Sarver. Based on the chosen three tonight, this is gearing up to be a great competition. So far, everyone can sing and there really aren't any Sanjayas in the group yet. Yes, Nick Mitchell/Norman Gentle is a novelty act. but he can sing and he's really entertaining.

But before we got to learn which three went through, the producers tortured us with yet another group number, with the Idols awkwardly dancing and singing Neo's "Closer." I'm not a big fan of the group numbers, and the singers don't look like they're having that much fun either.

I love Simon Cowell for many reasons: He's almost always right, and while he can be a bit too harsh at times, he doesn't drown the contestants in useless platitudes either. When Seacrest asks the judges to give this second group of 12 advice for tonight, Kara blah blahs on about "bringing it," and "doing their best," while Simon tells them that it's too late for advice-- because it kind of is.

They've already chosen their songs, which is one of the most important, if not the most important factor in how well they'll do tonight. All you can really tell them at this point is "don't suck." Let's see how many of this twelve actually don't suck-- I'm sincerely hoping it will be more than last week, because if not, it's going to be a long two hours.