'The Voice' Pre-finale!

I haven't posted much on NBC's The Voice this season, but I've been enjoying a lot about it lately. It's sort of a shame that the press for both The Voice and American Idol have focussed on this cockeyed "competition" between the two shows, because, frankly, there's room for both in our TV-verse -- especially since NBC's scheduling of the former didn't force us to choose (well done, NBC)! While I have been enjoying The Voice a lot in recent weeks, I have to admit that it took me a while to get into any of the contestants. The coaches are so much more interesting than the contestants (the opposite is true on Idol, incidentally) that it was hard to remember many of the "voices" we saw in the blind auditions. Then it kept getting weirder when about half of the battle rounds went to contestants with seemingly stank personalities. Hmmm.

The "live shows", though, are where the real magic started to happen. They started off a little slow, but when the sing-for-you-life thing kicked in on results shows, desperation started making people awesome. Namely, Ashley de la Rosa with this performance of Grace Potter and the Nocturnal's "Paris (ooh la la)"! (I also LOVED her version of Jewel's "Foolish Games" because it made me hear that song differently, which is all I really want my reality singing contestants to do!) Additionally, some people who were pretty good during the auditions started getting a lot better in the live shows. I'll miss Jamar Rogers, even though I like Juliet Simms better.

After all was said and done, we ended up with Tony Lucca (Adam's new BFF, and Xtina's punching bag**), Jermaine Paul (Blake's protégée who is amazingly not a teenage girl), Chris Mann (Xtina's opera singer with the frightening gaze), and Juliet Simms (CeeLo's whiskey-voiced murderer). If you know me at all, you'll not be surprised that Juliet is my favorite of this bunch, and, really, of the whole season. I tried to like Tony Lucca, but can't see much past the MMC nostalgia thing; Jermaine Paul is fine, but he's not exactly going to set the world on fire; and, seriously, would you buy a Chris Mann record? I don't think you would. Juliet's performances of "Roxanne" and "It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World", however, are some of the best reality show performances this year! It would be a real shame to see her lose out to one of those three fellows. I'm also really curious to see if a woman can win The Voice, because I don't think a woman can win Idol any more (not just this season, either).

It will be interesting to see what happens tonight on the final performance show! Who are you rooting for??

** The real fun starts in this clip around the 2:12 mark during the night that will forever be known as "Honesty Night". Wowsers.