Voice fans select a final five

The Voice

December 9, 2020 By Mark Franklin 0

Blake Shelton flanked by his finalists, Ian Flanigan and Jim Ranger (NBC Photo)

Tamara Jade has been a standout on The Voice since turning four chairs in the blind auditions.

In each of the past two weeks, I graded her performances as the best on the show.

She will not be in the Season 19 finale next week.

The Voice found an outstanding trio of female pop singers in Marisa Corvo, Kelsie Watts and Cami Clune this season.

By Tuesday, thanks to some Kelly Clarkson missteps, only Cami remained. She won’t be in the finale either.

These are the sorts of things that happen when a singing show goes from a Top 17 to a winner in three weeks.

These are the kind of things that happen when you enforce a silly mandate that each coach must have a finalist, vote totals be damned.

These are the kind of things that happen on The Voice these days.

The show is much, much worse because of it.

As I wrote yesterday, just a sad and sorry shadow of its former self.

To those who advanced — Jim Ranger, Ian Flanigan, Carter Rubin, DeSz and John Holiday, congrats.

To fans of those who didn’t, don’t take it too seriously.

This version of The Voice can’t be considered a legitimate singing competition.

Nine singers competed Monday night, but thanks to that aforementioned silly rule, the night really boiled down to remaining members of each team dueling one another.

Team Kelly: DeSz advanced, leaving Cami Clune to fight for the save. I was hoping to see Cami advance, but can’t disagree based on Monday’s performances. DeSz had also won the Team Kelly fan vote in the playoffs.

Team Legend: John Holiday advanced, leaving Tamara Jade and Bailey Rae to compete for the instant save. John’s a talented vocalist, no doubt. But I’ve enjoyed Tamara’s performances more in every round of the competition.

Team Blake: Jim Ranger pulled something of an upset, winning the fan vote a week after Ian Flanigan did so in the live playoffs. Just a hunch, but I wouldn’t be surprised if both of them landed in the Top 4 in the overall voting.

Team Gwen: Carter Rubin advanced. No shocker there. The 15-year-old got the pimp spot Monday and delivered in a youthful sort of way. He also won the live voting in the playoffs, which means this every coach must have a finalist rule also sapped nearly all the suspense from the first half of Monday’s results show.

Instant save: Ian Flanigan won the instant save vote at the end of Tuesday’s show, which only heightens my suspicion that both he and Jim did very well in the overall vote totals. In hindsight, Jim winning the overnight fan vote might have worked to Team Blake’s advantage. Jim is from Bakersville, Calif., and the instant save — conducted on east coast time — has never been kind and has never been fair for West Coast contestants.

Not that The Voice has ever cared enough to address that issue either.