Didn’t follow this sooner because I’m kinda burned out on singing shows right now. Caught yesterday’s episode because, what the heck, there was nothing good on; caught as much of episode on on VOD as I could stand (made as far as Hippo’s intro).
Haaaaahh. :rolleyes:
All right, I, too, find this show absolutely terrible, but I’m guessing not for the same reasons as the rest of you (what a shock ;)). Basically, it has two predominant elements: The galactically, royally, monumentally irritating part and the making no goddam sense whatsoever part.
I’ll start with the first, and by which I mean the freaking judges. Good LORD. Hey, remember the first few seasons of American Idol? Remember Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson? They said a bunch of meaningless crap in a normal tone of voice and then, once they said their piece, stopped. They knew they were talking heads with absolutely zero power and they had no pretensions otherwise. The judges on The Masker Singer have essentially the same function, definitely the same amount of power, and yet treat us to endless outrageous flailing speculation and CONSTANTLY interrupt EVERY SINGLE GODDAM PART of the proceedings with their imbecilic blatherings. Much like the judges on, oh, every other useless cookie-cutter reality show these days, they have to make it all about them.
And another thing. What is it with all the eardrum-scorching screaming and laughing? For the love of Yukari, I think my sister had preteen slumber parties that didn’t have that much screaming and laughing. I had no idea “mental asylum chic” was a thing.
Hey, remember way, way back when Nick Cannon was by far the most annoying regular on America’s Got Talent, how the camera would interrupt every act three freaking times to pick up his asinine ramblings? He’s all but invisible here. Any insight he may have is completely swallowed up by halfwitted shrieking groupies known as the judges.
As for the nonsensical part…deep sigh. All right, I’ve railed on the one-at-a-time elimination system, which I affectionately refer to as anuddah-wun-bi-da-dus (mainly because I’m convinced that our collective neverending obsession with Queen is the only way this system could have become so ironclad, but that’s another thread). I truly believe that the only show I’ve seen where this ever worked was Survivor (It theoretically should work for The Amazing Race, which has the closest thing to a true “last man standing” format that I’ve seen, but regrettably is rendered utterly meaningless by all the ridiculous bunch-up points and dumb luck tasks…another thread.) and that it’s become the invincible universal standard for the entirety of reality TV is one of the main reason that so much of it is atrocious. On Survivor, you have the contestants voting directly against each other, and how to avoid getting voted off and convince other contestants to vote someone they want out are part of the strategy. THAT’S what makes it work. Furthermore, because the show is so heavily edited and we’re only see a small snippet of the total time at the location, fewer contestants doesn’t mean less entertainment. This does not work for a regular singing or talent competition. First off, time. How do you fit every number from 2-12 into inflexible hour-long time blocks? I remember one season where American Idol squeezed 10 performances into one hour, and I could tell how incredibly rushed it was. Then there’s our old friend Rock Bottom Plus One, where first and barely above last are worth exactly the same, and nothing carries over to the next week. And then we get into the joys of voting, from fanatical blocks pushing obviously inferior contestants to strong contestants getting bounced because they had an one off night in the wrong week to fanatical blocks deliberately pushing the most inferior contestants, and of course, “They thought she was saaaaaaaafe!” :smack: Anuddah-wun-bi-da-dus is a plague on the genre, and the token efforts made to rectify it (judges’ saves, sing-offs, vote caps, etc.) have barely made a dent.
But here? I mean, how does it even work? Okay, let’s see if I have this right. The performers give a few clues which may or may not be any help. Then they get on stage and sing. (I must admit, they’ve all been really good, which makes it all the more regrettable that Screechy McChucklewit has to jump in with “Oh my gaawwwwdddd!!!” or “He sounds like a professional!!!” every fifteen fricking seconds.) Then, once everyone has gone (and dropped off another hint which may or may not be any help), the audience…votes on who they…don’t want to be unmasked. So the first 57 minutes are all who is that, who is that, who is that, and in the end it’s just another popularity contest. I mean…what? Is this supposed to be a hackneyed, ridiculously poorly thought out, utterly pointless version of The Voice (which is utter crap to begin with)? It seems to me that the sensible method…well, as sensible as an American knockoff of a Korean variety show could ever be…would be for the audience to say who they think the singers are, and whoever gets the least correct responses has to unmask. Or the most correct responses. Depends on whether the point is to stump them or give enough clues for them to make the right guess, and Sagume Kishin on a poncho they couldn’t be arsed to make THAT much clear??
It’s so nonsensical I don’t even have any idea how the audience is supposed to vote. I mean, for your typical talent show, you vote for who you want to continue to the next round (or in the case of American Idol, some random hopeless sad sack because the one you actually want to continue really knocked it out of the park and is therefore completely safe so you’re going to back a “sentimental favorite”, only to find out the next week that one you wanted to continue is out because no one voted for her because they thought she was completely safe, and you feel like an utter tool and now you have no choice but to continue backing the random hopeless sad sack because she’s the only one left you don’t utterly despise). On the Masked Singer, you vote for…someone you thought was good and want to hear perform again? Someone you don’t really care about and don’t need to see revealed? Someone whose clues intrigued you and you want to know more? What exactly is the paradigm here?
Super Dave was bizarre. This is just aimless schlock. Hard pass.
(Don’t follow celebrities, don’t know who 90% of these people are, so don’t bother asking me for guesses.)
