Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Xavier Cornell should have had a chance at the fan voting on The Voice. (NBC Photo)

Apparently, we’re going to get a full slate of live shows this season instead of the abbreviated schedule we saw in Seasons 18-20.

The abbreviated schedule took us from the live playoffs to the winner in three weeks. And, in my opinion, robbed the outcome of tons of credibility.

And The Voice added Ariana Grande to the coaching panel. Either she’s genuinely invested in her contestants or doing a great job of pretending to be. I prefer to believe the former.

But — and this is a big but – you could hand The Voice producers an unlimited budget and an unlimited number of shows and I’m convinced they’d still manage to do something completely nonsensical.

Which brings me to the just completed knockout round, which was every bit as unfair as the battle round that proceeded it.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know the argument I’m going to make. That all steals should be held until coaches have gotten a chance to see and hear everyone perform.

Because otherwise, the coaches tend to use up their steals and saves quickly. And contestants performing late in the round wind up performing with less chance of advancing because there are no saves (battle round only) or steals left.

Sure enough, according to idolforums.com, it happened again in the Season 21 knockout round.

According to that site, the 16 knockout round matches were split into three tapings, with five matches in the first two tapings and six in the third.

During the first taping, Ariana and Kelly Clarkson used their steals, on Holly Forbes and Katie Rae, respectively.

During the second taping, Blake Shelton and John Legend used their steals, on Paris Winningham and David Vogel, respectively.

That meant from the final knockout on day two (Team Blake’s Libianca vs. Hailey Green) through the taping of the final six knockouts on day three, not a single steal was available.

Which, of course, put all the singers in a win-or-be-eliminated situation, making it less likely that those contestants would advance.

But, hey, that’s standard operating procedure for The Voice, which has used the same format for the battles and knockouts season after season, year after year, fair or not.

What makes Season 21 worse is that producers had a chance to make the format fairer. And they blew it.

Of course, I’m talking about the comeback twist announced at the end of Monday’s show. Each coach nominated one eliminated singer from their team for a chance to be voted into the instant save at the end of the live playoffs by the show’s fans.

Blake and John made sensible choices, nominating Hailey Green and Samara Brown, singers eliminated after strong knockout round performances that came after all the steals were exhausted.

Inexplicably, Kelly and Ariana nominated Aaron Hines and Vaughn Mugol, singers eliminated back in the battle round.

Instead, producers should have taken control of the process. Recognizing the fact that seven singers were eliminated in the knockouts after all the steals had been used, they should have declared those seven singers – Hailey, Samara, Xavier Cornell, Sabrina Dias, Manny Keith, Katherine Ann Mohler and Berritt Haynes – eligible for the comeback vote and a chance to return to the competition.

Wouldn’t that have been refreshing? Wouldn’t that have added a sense of fairness to the process?

Especially since Xavier and Sabrina also turned in strong knockout round performances.

It didn’t happen, of course.

Because this is The Voice. Where the producers love gimmicks. And fairness isn’t even a second thought.

The problem with The Voice battle round
Voice montages: Disrespectful and unnecessary