Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Khalid, a mentor during the Season 16 battle rounds, with John Legend. Khalid will perform on the Seson 16 finale. (NBC Photo)

If you thought The Voice would change its approach to its finale after serving up a mangled Season 16 to viewers … think again.

The show will follow the same format for Monday’s performance finale as it has in recent years, complete with the throw-away duets by the contestants and their coaches.

And The Voice will again treat its Tuesday finale as a celebration of established stars and whatever they need to pimp at the moment rather than a celebration of the season just completed.

With the show’s ratings hitting record lows, I can understand the desire to have Taylor Swift, BTS and the Jonas Brothers show up in an attempt to prop up ratings.

Sorry, Carson Daly, I don’t tune into The Voice to watch Taylor, BTS or the Jonas Brothers. Especially when they’re serving up performances with no connection at all to the season just completed.

What should the show have done?

Since Season 16 has been so abbreviated, each finalist should have performed three solos Monday night instead of two solos and a duet with his/her coach.

Did you know that the finalists on American Idol have performed 18 times to date, including one duet and one group number? The Voice’s Top 4 have performed seven times, including two duets.

The Voice contestant-coach duets planned for Monday don’t even count for voting purposes. They could have easily been moved to Tuesday’s show.

As for the superstars who will be on hand … well, Idol will have stars at its finale too. The difference: Every one will be performing with a contestant from the current season.

The exception: Carrie Underwood and Adam Lambert will be singing their new singles.

Guess what? They’re alumni of the show.

Guess what? The Voice has alumni too. No one quite as celebrated as Carrie or Adam. But alumni with great new music already out and new music on the way.

But The Voice would rather promote Taylor and BTS and the Jonas Brothers and Hootie and the Blowfish, etc., etc., etc.

And then, at the very end of the show, if old habits hold true, Carson will hand the trophy to the new winner and the show will quickly end and cut to commercial. Without time to celebrate. Without a coronation song.

And, again, if old habits hold true, it’ll be the last time we see any of the Season 16 cast on The Voice stage with the possible exception of the winner.

It’ll be on to Season 17 and another cast of 48 disposable contestants.

See also …
Ranking the Top 4
The Voice announces star-studded finale