Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Voice coaches Blake Shelton, Jennifer Hudson, Adam Levine and Miley Cyrus backstage. (NBC Photo)

Call this a plea to The Voice.

A futile plea, I’m sure. But a plea nonetheless.

Please play fair during the Season 13 finals.

Along those lines, the show is not off to a great start. A piss-poor start in fact.

During those intro packages before the live playoff performances, it became clear that Jon Mero and Brooke Simpson selected the songs they performed.

It also became clear that lots of the songs were selected by the coaches. Some of those songs turned out terribly unsuited for the contestants singing them. Some were well-suited, but didn’t deliver the impact the contestant needed to make the finals.

This is an example of the show being blatantly unfair.

In my opinion, the contestants should be choosing the songs from this point forward, with input from the coaches should they need it, request it or want it.

These contestant have a lot more time invested in The Voice than we see on TV. Those who are already established artists have to put their careers essentially on hold for months.

As a result, they should be in command of their own fate as much as possible.

Of course, they can’t dictate performance order, and that’s another issue to watch as the finals proceed.

Generally, performing early in a two-hour show isn’t preferred. Performing last? Well, they call it the pimp spot for a reason.

And remember good ol’ Season 12, which should go down as one of The Voice’s most notorious.

Lauren Duski kicked Chris Blue’s butt on iTunes throughout the finals. She delivered the best “moment” in the finale, an impassioned performance of a song she wrote.

She never got to close a show.

Chris Blue, the show’s obvious favorite?

He got to perform last twice. During just five weeks of finals.

In the just-completed Season 13 playoffs, The Voice gave the pimp spots to Keisha Renee, Addison Agen and Janice Freeman. Nothing wrong with that.

But for the sake of fairness, they should not close a show again in Season 13.

More signs of trouble on the horizon …

1. The Twitter save is back. Yep, the Twitter save that has never been won by a West Coast contestant. Not surprising since the Twitter save voting window lasts for about five minutes when the show is airing on East Coast time.

2. The official voting rules for Season 13 include provisions for duets in the semifinals. Those are inherently unfair, especially with a spot in the finals on the line. Someone will be paired with the show’s front-runner. Someone will be paired with the contestant with the least fan support. How can that possibly be fair?

It’s also likely that someone will wind up in a duet with someone whose voice and genre simply aren’t a good match. Remember how the show paired Hunter Plake and Aliyah Moulden in the Season 12 semifinals? Until that point, Hunter looked like a sure bet to make the Top 4. He didn’t.

So like I say, this is a plea for fairness during the Season 13 finals.

But don’t expect this.

As Carson Daly likes to remind us: This is The Voice.

Ranking the Season 13 Top 12
Social media leaders for the Season 13 Top 12