If I wasn't totally sure the last time I checked in on "The Voice", I can now say with certainty that I won't be back for the third season of this show.
Last night's final performance show was extra unbearable. Even with only four artists left on the show, the amount of programming holes on the NBC schedule hasn't changed so we're still being subjected to two hour episodes. But don't worry, that means we get to hear each artist sing three songs! Hooray! And not just three regular old boring songs, no sir! Not like those other singing competition shows would do. We got to hear them duet with their coach AND sing an awkward, undeserving-of-the-attempted-emotion-behind-it tribute song to their coach. And from what I could tell while fast forwarding through Chris Mann's post-song speech to Coach Xtina, it was
With only an artist each left in the competition, the coaches have lost control over the fate of the contestants and as a result have taken to totally cutting down the competing artists. Keep in my mind that this used to be a show where critical comments just didn't exist. Easily the best (by which I mean the most awkward) moment of the night was when Coach Xtina told her former Mouseketeer buddy Tony Lucca that his performance of "99 Problems" was derogatory to women. She claimed it was particularly misogynistic considering sitting in the audience were his wife and daughter, who is actually his son. Adam Levine passive aggressively explained to her that the song was what's known as a metaphor and the audience oooohhed and applauded. Coach Xtina was mad until Adam took off his jacket to reveal he was wearing a glittery Team Xtina shirt, the sight of which made her stand and applaud him. Oh Coach Xtina; maybe if you turn completely into "The Voice"'s version of Paula Abdul, I'll come back next season.
"Next season", by the way, is rumoured to begin airing in August once the Olympics are over. Bad, bad idea. Ratings are good, but they eroded this season and bringing the show back so soon is going to be overkill for your audience. Also, the coaches on this show probably have careers they'd like to get back to. I can only assume they'd rather be doing that than immediately going back to fighting with each other over which record label reject will be most loved by America. That's more of a January thing, anyway.
"The Voice" will finally end tomorrow night at 9pm on NBC, with Tony Lucca, Chris Mann, Jermaine Paul, and Juliet Simms finishing in that order. Congratulations (I guess) in advance, once again, to Adam Levine for "winning". If you really care though, I would actually recommend tuning in at about 10:53/9:53 central, so as to avoid filler performances by Justin Bieber and Hall and Oates.
Actually, my real prediction for tomorrow night's finale? Pain.
UPDATE: 5:23am ET Wednesday, May 9: My live blog of the finale follows:
9:00pm ET: Carson Daly welcomes us to the show
9:01 - 10:50pm ET: Filler musical performances.
10:50 - 11:00pm ET: Show's actual purpose begins. America votes wrong: Chris Mann finishes in fourth. Tony Lucca finishes in third. Juliet Simms finishes in second. Jermaine Paul is the winner of season 2 of The Voice.
