Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Syd Millevoi performs during The Voice semifinals, which aired Monday. (NBC Photo)

Syd Millevoi and Jared Shoemaker were flat-out robbed Monday night on The Voice.

Both were deserving of spots in the Season 29 finals.

Both wound up heading home thanks to the ill-conceived and completely illogical method The Voice used to pick Season 29 finalists.

This marked the first Voice season without at least one live show. This marked the first Voice season without fan voting.

Instead, voting was turned over to the audience, which consisted of Voice “super fans” and past contestants.

Throughout Monday’s pre=taped semifinals show, there were clips of coaches Adam Levine, John Legend and Kelly Clarkson huddled together talking about how this was going to work out just dandy.

Hogwash. Hogwash. Hogwash.

Instead, the result was a show that came off as overproduced and unauthentic. The results were a mixed bag at best, laughable at worst.

Understand, I operate under the premise that contestants on singing shows should be largely in control of their own fate. And should be judged on the entirety of their performances.

And, wow, did Season 29 of The Voice fall short.

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Problem number 1: A format that requires every coach to have a singer in the finale. Why? So no one’s feelings get hurt? So coaches stayed invested until the end of the season? Or, most likely, because the show cares more about the coaches than the contestants.

It wasn’t alway like this. Once upon a time, The Voice was the best singing show on TV. That was a long time ago. Probably back between Seasons 3 and 8.

Back then, each coach advanced the same number of singers to the multiple live shows. After that, it was a free for all. May the best singer win. And it didn’t matter who the coach was or how many singers a coach had in the season finale.

Problem number 2: The all-star showdown. I called it silliest, most stupid gimmick The Voice ever came up with when it was announced. Nothing that has happened since has changed my mind.

After the knockouts and before the semifinals, several past Voice standouts returned for knockout style matches. They represented their old coaches. The coach that scored the most wins courtesy of those past contestants got a second spot in the finale.

And, therein, lies the problem. The fourth spot in the SEASON FINALE wasn’t going to go to someone based on how THEY performed on the show. It was going to go to A TEAM based on the performances of singers who weren’t even contestants on Season 29.

It ranks as one of the most ludicrous wrinkles I’ve witnessed in 25 years of writing about televised singing shows. Thanks to it, Team Kelly got a second spot in the finale. Thanks to it, Mikenley Brown is in the finals tonight instead of the more deserving Jared Shoemaker.

Problem number 3: The audience selecting the finalists. Look, I’ll admit fan voting hasn’t always worked out great on The Voice. Way too many country singers have won. It took the show way, way, way too long to figure out how to neutralize the Blake Shelton advantage. Black female singers have never gotten the respect they deserve.

But I’m pretty sure cutting out the fans at home to create another unfair voting system wasn’t the answer. And I’m calling the new voting system unfair because I got the distinct impression the audience was voting based on the semifinal performances alone and not the sum of each contestant’s performances on The Voice.

Question: During Monday’s show, how often did we hear coaches tell singers one of their main challenges would be to win over the audience? Answer: Lots.

Question: How often did we hear a coach say, “Well, being super fans and past contestants, the members of the audience have watched all of your past performances on the show? Now you need to take it up another notch.” Answer: Never.

And so we have Lucas West in the finals. And not Syd Millevoi, who had turned in a string of sterling performances on the show. And had been every bit as impressive as Alexia Jayy, the likely favorite entering tonight’s finale.

Joining Alexia will be Lucas, Mikenley and Liv Ciara, a 16-year-old who turned in the season’s best performance on Monday’s pre-taped show.

I’m sure they’ll all do fine. As usual, talent is not the problem on The Voice.

The producers and the gimmicks are the problem.

Jared Shoemaker performs in The Voice semifinals, which aired Monday night. (NBC Photo)