Idol Chatter & Voice Views

What’s the best singing show on television?

The Voice. By a country mile, as Blake Shelton would say.

Ddendyl and Lindsay Pagano during a mentoring session with Shakira. (NBC Photo)

The celebrity talent (meaning coaches/judges) are the most entertaining on TV.

The singers … wow, talk about talent … The Voice finds it, season after season.

But that doesn’t mean the show was without fault in Season 6. I count five major missteps.

1. The missing singers: Remember Cali Tucker? How about Lindsay Pagano? Perhaps Joshua Howard? They all successfully auditioned for Season 6, but you might have missed them if you blinked. All three were part of montage packages during the blind auditions. Then most of their first-round battle matches wound up on the cutting-room floor as well. My opinion: If you make The Voice, if you help promote the show by plastering an “I auditioned” banner on your Facebook page, if you’re counting on the show to boost your fan base, you deserve more airtime than that. Follow those links and you’ll learn more about each of the three singers.

2. A second battle round: Now I know collaborations are all the rage in music right now. But the show is called The Voice. Not “The Voices” or “So You Think You Can Duet.” And we’re eventually voting for individual singers. Not on how well these contestants can harmonize. So one battle round is quite sufficient, thank you. I much preferred the old knockout round, where two singers squared off, but each sang separately. Besides, battle rounds are really difficult for contestants who enter the show as a duet, like Dawn and Hawkes. Now they each get one-fourth of an already shortened song on which to shine. And they’re likely harmonizing with a third singer. It just doesn’t work.

Adam Levine went blond during Season 6, prompting an endless string of jokes from Blake Shelton. (NBC Photo)

3. Judge’s antics: Hey, I love watching Blake Shelton and Adam Levine joke around as much as anyone. But this season, the antics seemed a little too over the top, a little too distracting. Blake gives out Adam’s cell phone number, causing an uproar. Then Adam has two earth movers dump manure on Blake’s truck. Really? Does anyone out there think that segment was good TV? I do not tune in to The Voice to watch the coaches pull juvenile pranks on one another.

4. The save: I was disappointed to find out it was returning for Season 6. I was more disappointed to find it still in effect as the Season 6 finalists were being selected last week, in spite of online rules that said its use would end a week earlier. From East Coast to West Coast, fans spend hours voting and downloading music after every episode. That should count for something. That should determine who stays and who goes home instead of a social media gimmick used at the last five minutes of each results show on eastern standard time, when hundreds of thousands of viewers aren’t even watching yet. It would be very interesting to know who would have gotten the third spot in the finals if the instant save hadn’t been in effect last week.

5. Shortening the finals: The Voice cut a week out of its finals this season, robbing us of at least two more chances to see each of the final three perform. I just posted blogs looking back at the individual performances of Josh Kaufman, Jake Worthington and Christina Grimmie. Because she needed a save last week, Christina performed solo eight times; Jake and Josh just seven times apiece. Wonder why American Idol contestants become household names? The show’s two finalists — Caleb Johnson and Jena Irene — have each performed solo 19 times, and that doesn’t even count their auditions.

Check back Monday night at 8 p.m. I’ll be live blogging throughout the two-hour performance finale and grading each song.

See also:
Ranking the Top 3 on The Voice
How the final three compare on iTunes
Looking back at Josh Kaufman’s Voice performances
Looking back at Christina Grimmie’s Voice performances
Looking back at Jake Worthington’s Voice performances