"The Voice 2" -- Episode 15: Duets

After the ‘high’ from the last 2 weeks’ episodes (classic TV theme songs), I must say that this week’s episode was a new ‘low’ – I really didn’t like any of the performances, except for maybe Hubert and Penny’s performance at the beginning. I don’t know what happened this week, but everyone seemed to be really off – even the ones who have traditionally gotten high scores in the past didn’t do too well.

First, I must say that the judging seemed to get back to where it’s supposed to be (finally) – the judges were pretty fair this time around and gave low scores where deserved rather than playing favorites (hey, maybe they learned something from Ruth Tsang the past 2 weeks!). There was only one contestant who received a score in the 80s (Hubert) – everyone else received scores in the 70s, which meant that the judges were being very tight with the scores this time around – of course this is perfectly fine with me, since none of the contestants did particularly well anyway.

The only ‘good’ thing about this episode was that one of my least favorite contestants – Vivian Chan – finally got eliminated this time. Those who’ve been reading my V2-related posts know what I think about her singing…I’m glad the judges finally ‘woke up’ and figured out that her singing is not quite up to par. I don’t feel bad at all that she got eliminated, since I’ve always thought that she should have gotten eliminated a long time ago. Plus, I’m tired of hearing her say the same thing every week – that she will work on her ‘issues’ and ‘bad habits’ and improve the next time…well, obviously she still has the same issues with her singing or else she wouldn’t have to say that each week.

I also really didn’t like that Vivian was paired up with Sheldon, as he really could have done better if he was paired with someone else….he actually had to sing a couple octaves lower than usual because his voice really doesn’t blend well with Vivian’s extremely high-pitched one.

Also, I really was surprised that Mag gave such a poor performance this week – I’ve never liked her singing since the beginning, but she has been a ‘favorite’ among the judges as well as the audiences for some reason (I still don’t get why). Her singing was WAY too low and too nasally this time – to the point where I could barely understand a single word that she sang….I actually got goosebumps listening to her this time around.

Oh, and one thing I noticed from the previous few episodes, which I already thought was annoying but didn’t say anything because I was waiting to see if it would continue: basically, the 2 hosts talk WAY too much in the beginning of each episode – to the point where I’ve found myself telling them out loud to ‘cut to the chase’ and get on with the program. Plus, people tune in to watch the contestants singing and the judges commentary as well as scoring – no one really cares that much what the hosts say, so they don’t need a 10 minute monologue at the beginning of the program. What makes it even more annoying is that TVB has been ‘cutting’ a lot of the judges’ comments due to the time constraints – if that’s the case, then I would rather they cut the stupid banter between the hosts (which, btw is just nonsense most of the time and isn’t even funny) and include more of the judges’ comments.

Overall, I felt that this episode was extremely boring – it was obvious that none of the contestants put much effort in their performances this time around and it really affected the entire atmosphere of this episode.