The Masked Singer / The Voice 2020 UK

In a move that I think is going to become a signature of 2020, namely 'throw enough stuff at a wall and something's gonna stick', ITV1 are starting two singing contests on the same night. First up is The Masked Singer, starting at 7pm, which is based off the American version of a South Korean TV show, where celebs sing while dressed like football mascots or those characters from It's A Knockout. Then straight after, it's The Voice UK because that's always brought exciting singing talent to the GBP's attention oh wait.

Also this looks like an advert for Monster Munch.
https://www.thewrap.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Masked-Singer-season-3.jpg

OK I am going to watch this
I have an idea about Unicorn
I don't want to see someone guess them all correctly on social media though

I basically watched TMS because it was on immediately before The Voice, but it was way more entertaining than I expected. A lot of work has gone in to the production (Duck's costume aside which looks like something from a fancy dress hire shop).
I would be very surprised if Unicorn doesn't turn out to be John Barrowman. I thought it was him from practically the beginning of the intro video. Chameleon looks like an 80s Doctor Who villain (there was a DW character called Chameleon but he was a companion). Speaking of which, I thought that Hedgehog was Sylvester McCoy but whoever it is sounds too young.
Also, who's more annoying? Bruno Tonioli standing up all the time on Strictly, or Ken Jeong standing up all the time saying "I know who this is"?
Meanwhile The Voice is ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Although it was brutal with the guy with the guitar who got the long VT intro and then no-one turned around.

I thought Jake Shears.

Ken Jeong's bit is getting annoying.

I haven't watched any reality stuff for years so all the padding is excruciating. I'm approx 50% watching because of the costumes.

The Voice is good! It doesn't ever "(bring) exciting singing talent to the GBP's attention" but I don't care about that.

I liked the bit where Davina was on the receiving end of a "And the winner is... going to be revealed after this break!" for once, after years of her doing that to us on Big Brother.

xxp The padding is pretty much par for the course on ITV1 reality shows - an hour and a half programme that could have been edited down to one hour.

Monster is an Olympic gold medalist - it'd be funny if it were tiny Mo Farah inside that huge costume. Fox looks like a Goldfrapp fever dream - the video intro clue about the East End was a bit obvious - Letitia Dean?

Tree is so Peter Crouch.

Tree obvs a footballer - I wonder how many times he hit the wood as a player? haha lol oh *gets coat* Pharaoh isn't Tony Blair. This show is a lot more fun than I thought it'd be - the low expectations for the celeb singers performances makes the occasionally bad singing more tolerable than on X Factor Celebs.

The previews/ads are trying to have it both ways..

"Oh is it Elton John? / Helen Mirren/ Idris Elba?"

These people are not on this show.

They'd want too much money, for a start.

Exactly.

I can confirm I am not a singing tree

— Peter Crouch (@petercrouch) January 5, 2020

Fair enough

So, is anybody talking about The Voice now?

We have to trudge through several weeks of blind auditions to get to the weekend where they suddenly get rid of half of the singers. For the moment, no-one's stood out.

The Masked Singer: it looked like the panel were having to work hard to look enthused. It didn't feel exciting.

The Voice: Of the many singing shows, I quite like this: there's a warmth and a decency. No-one ever seems chosen for being comedy awful and there sometimes seems to be genuine regret (that no-one turned around). I know I'm not the target audience but the panel doesn't work for me. Olly Murs is worse than Ricky Wilson!

Ken acts almost like someone's writing his gags for him. Davina looks enthusiastic but we've seen her do that over the most woeful BB shit. Rita Ora's thinking the whole time that she'd rather be back on The Voice? Wossy is the only one who I can genuinely believe wants to be there, because right now his ITV1 chat show is doing well, so he doesn't really need to be taking an early Saturday evening gig. Whether or not any of the panel give a shit, I still think it's a good show - although as mentioned above the padding kills momentum.

Olly is way less annoying than I thought he'd be - he's still plenty annoying though. I always thought that Ricky was a bit crap as a mentor, no matter how sincere he might have been. will.i.am has dialled back the enforced wackiness over several series - at the start he was unbearable. He'll still take your favourite act and do a stupid collab in a moment though. Meghan it's too early to tell. If Tom Jones wasn't on this show I'd be much less interested in watching - the year he was absent and replaced with Paloma Faith (perhaps not surprisingly the last year it was on BBC before the move to ITV) would have been terrible if it hadn't been for Boy George.

Tom Jones is interesting because he's "properly famous" - the sort of famous that your family would want you to *choose him* even if your FAVOURITE POP STAR IN THE WORLD EVER! was Meghan. It adds interest. Ricky was entertaining because almost no-one was ever going to actively choose him. I could imagine that someone would think "There's no way will.i.am will be interested in me but Ricky might be my new best mate."

Like with Wossy, Tom doesn't need to do this, so I assume that his motivations are less driven by business (the vertical brand that is will.i.am) or a need to keep a career ticking over between albums (Meghan - first album in four years due this year / Olly - at his current rate his next album won't be out until the end of this year).

Gah I was so close to guessing that. The pronunciation of 'through' in the second song was winding me up. Think I wasn't expecting a 'professional' singer.
I can't really hear the vox clearly in the big songs, which may be intentional?

For all the panels talk last week about him being an athlete, I wasn't expecting it to be him.

Yeah I'd resigned myself to giving up as I don't know what any athletes sound like.
Also I've mixed up which character had which clues since last week.

They did TMS in Aus last year and it was excruciating - the singers were all C grade and when revealed, half the judges would be like "wait, who?". Which, if you have Lindsay Lohan as a judge is gonna happen regardless I suppose.

They were going out of their way to not say "Charlotte Church" this week.

xxp some of the clues seem to contradict clues from last week. Duck speaks Italian and Spanish now?

xp the UK version is about half professional singers, half celebs who can sing pretty well, and Pharoah. It was a surprise to hear his singing voice in juxtaposition to the costume. Good job he got voted off in the first week as that would have worn thin very quickly. This show would be worse than X Factor Celebs if none of them could sing.

Just gave it two minutes out of idle curiosity because the costumes are lovely jesus christ I did not need to hear Teddy Sheringham sing

Apparently neither did the panel because he's been voted off.

I particularly like TMS because there's no pretence that they're going to find the next Little Mix or One Direction. Unlike The Voice, which is all serious and earnest about finding the next big star (which they never do), combined with this bland daytime TV aesthetic (especially the VT on the boat, and oh and that's not the first time Tom's worn a captain's hat)
https://igifineart.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/tj010.600x1000_q85.jpg

lol at the guy who was prepared to throw his band under the bus to get famous, but then none of the coaches turned around

TMS unmasking was a surprise tonight. She looked sad to be out this early, would have been a deserving series winner.

be even sadder when it turns out she's lost to Ed Balls or something

or cee lo

Would've thought the audience would be voting for who they most want to see unmasked rather than who 'deserves' to win

Don't think so, they have previously unmasked the ones who can't sing that well.

yes, although iirc one of the good ones was in the 'bottom two'.

Octopus?

Joel Dommett - because Rylan would rather present Ready Steady Cook.

I thought Jake Shears.

― kinder, Saturday, January 4, 2020 11:38 PM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

cough cough

I said this from week 1!

Totally gutted I didn't get Duck. She's always been someone whose voice I've been fascinated with but never guessed. Kind of a mix between steely wee girly and gravelly older soul. I blame the waddly costume.

Surprised how much I'm enjoying this show! Except for Rita Ora

Like, I'm pleasantly surprised it's not all "someone from Made In Chelsea" - they're all well-established people in their fields/genres

Davina said that Duck was Skin a couple of weeks ago. Unicorn has been pegged as Jake Shears for a while now. I said upthread that I'd be surprised if it wasn't John Barrowman, but after a few weeks of performances I'd been moved over to the "It's Jake of course it is" side.
I get the feeling from Rita that she's trying not very hard to pretend that she's excited by this. Maybe because she's sitting between someone who makes a living out of looking at least semi-plausibly excited (Davina) and someone who makes a living out of appearing semi-interested (Wossy).

Meanwhile on The Voice, are the auditions where no-one presses their button more brutal than previous years? Or is it because there are more people auditioning this time, so they're not showing any of the crap or even mediocre acts?

xp it's unusual to see a celeb based reality show that isn't mainly people from reality shows - see the last few I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here's.

No-one guessed Jake Shears until a week or two ago so I'm claiming this one.

did Davina really guess Skin previously?

I think so.

I just skipped through to check - she basically says Mel C every time. No mention of Skin by any of them!

I wonder where I heard that Duck was Skin? Because apart from this thread and watching the show, I haven't been watching/reading anything else about TMS. Although I'm aware of Skin, mainly from Skunk Anansie, I never would have thought that she was Duck.

very odd to see skin in a small tent screaming about a baby drawing a swastika over furious punk rock then see her a quarter of a century later singing the song from titanic dressed as a giant duck, on ITV. Jake / unicorn was too obvious from the start, and his choice of song this time didn't work.

I love queen bee and hope to god she is Nicola Roberts and not someone shit. I will wager something she is not Ellie Goulding, sounds nothing like her. Think they got too close last week, so this time the clues were silly and their guesses ridiculous.

Worst one is fucking hedgehog, he may well be Michael Ball.

I've only watched the first one so far - skipped past at least half of it. loool at how random the person was! really thought it was someone else who'd already been mentioned in the show, at first.

Ive seen about 10 seconds, Onomatopoeia doing the "Can you guess who I am?" bit. I think it's Timmy Mallett.

Yeah, go on then: Timmy Mallett.

Shall we put Strictly in this thread since The Masked Dancer is basically aiming for 'Strictly but with stupider costumes'? It's also similar in that I can watch it while doing other things, even other quite involved things.

There is a Strictly thread somewhere. But I'm happy to go on record here at how much I am enjoying the idea of Jayde Adams and Karen Hauer breaking the minds of the kind of bellends who describe themselves as anti-woke by being two straight women in a same-sex dance partnership.

Matt Goss is a ridiculous human being, isn't he?

Unless there's a more recent thread this is the only Strictly thread I could find: Strictly Come Dancing--am I on my own here?
Last updated by me two years ago and then before that eight years ago.

I marvel at how much botox it must take to prevent Matt's face collapsing into a contemptuous sneer. It was bad enough in the Bros documentary but seeing him trying to keep it together on the live shows is going to be something.

just remembered, I guessed last week's unmasked dancer purely because of their voice which was distinctive even through the voice changer thing.

In every close-up on tonight's Strictly, Matt looked like he was about to go off ona rant. Who knows what'll happen when he actually gets voted off rather than just being in the bottom two.

Shirley claiming she'd have saved Kaye was absolute nonsense though, she forgot the entire routine in the dance off. Matt seems entirely baffled by the whole thing, and curiously unmusical for someone who has a big showbizzy Vegas theatrical career.

"You can't be wearing that jacket because you like it" - first time ever I've laughed at a John Bishop joke.

Channeling Mark E Smith there

My kid really hates Pearly King! How does he keep getting through?! It's pissing him off!

The Voice semi final - two hours of television that simultaneously managed to feel perfunctory. I disagreed with all of the coaches choices for the final four.

I don't usually watch Strictly but if you like your dancing shows utterly daft, this week's has a tango to the Dr Who theme, as well as dances to The Apprentice, Eastenders and Grange Hill themes

Don't forget dancing the Charleston to the theme tune to Blue Peter, which is a hornpipe and has it's own specific dance.

The concept of Couple's Choice somewhat abandoned to make Molly and Carlos "choose" a thing clearly neither of them gave a shit about and is absolutely not suitable for street dance

I don't like Halloween theme weeks (X Factor's being particularly woeful) but somehow Strictly manages to get away with it.
Meanwhile on The Voice, Tom's jacket looks like something Gary Barlow wore as an X Factor judge.

Watching the end of this I Can See Your Voice thing on BBC1, absolute dregs of UK light ents, and can someone please get Jimmy Carr properly cancelled.

Even for a show that started during the pandemic, and might have been given some benefit of the doubt for having been recorded under those circumstances, it was immediately obvious that I Can See Your Voice was a steaming pile. I guess the BBC continued with it because it's cheap to make?

throw enough stuff at a wall and something's gonna stick

Last night: Ian Beale and Mr Motivator in drag
Tonight: The Masked Singer I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here Special Edition

Followed by Matt Hancock and Chris Moyles eating bugs until mid December.

Tonight: The Masked Singer I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here Special Edition

The Masked Singer starts tonight at 6:30pm on ITV1 - another genius bit of scheduling to have this series start on New Year's Day to a captive audience.

A whole week before we see the other half of them?!

Gives me time to recover from all the commercial breaks and filler.

Knitting is Claire from Steps. I shall be back with more wrong guesses at some point.

Fleeting Annie Lennox vibes from Fawn. I will also be back with more wrong guesses...

I thought Alison Goldfrapp, but I'm definitely wrong.

Rhino could be Rylan as whoever is in that costume is definitely very tall. Probably not Russell Brand as he doesn't believe in wearing masks...

Judges keeping up their habit of removing a proper singer and leaving in the crap one who can't sing at all, I see.

"Well" was an excellent clue in hindsight.

Took us about two seconds of Piece of Cake singing to go "well, that's Lulu".

I'm very much on the Rylan/Rhino bandwagon. Fawn, I'm thinking Stacy Solomon. Not got much else yet for the rest.

Praying they get rid of Otter, not sure I can sit through that again.

Knitting = Claire from Steps?

Yeah, everyone seems to think so. She's the best from this half.

I have witnesses who can confirm I said Mel Gedroyc for Otter before the telly people did.

Jellyfish is way better than Knitting!

Having a duo just sing the same thing at the same time means you can't actually hear either voice very well so I wasn't too invested in Cat & Mouse staying in.

Last week's was unremarkable
I was getting fed up with this one, was hoping it'd be someone 'funny' enough to be worth the 'haha you are a terrible singer' schtick and was adequately surprised by the reveal.

I said Mel Giedroyc for Otter on Facebook and Twitter couple of weeks ago. I should do these on here too. Knitting is definitely Claire Richards. There appears to be a giant groundswell of opinion that Jacket Potato is Richie Sambora and I have been all over the other social medias insisting it's 100% Shane Richie and I will never stop laughing if it turns out they have identical singing voices.

Fawn is an Appleton - Natalie, I think.

I'm also buying Jellyfish as Amber Riley as suggested by Jonathan Ross in a rare lucid moment. I don't really get him enough but there's so much chatter about Rhino from his fangirls that I have to assume it's the person the internet says it is.

Phoenix is the one I can't get a handle on at all

ffs can they get rid of Otter this time?

Well still a 50% chance, come on!

Still, whatever happens more of this audience voted for Otter than for Knitting so they should probably not be allowed to vote on anything again.

Well I'm disappointed because I like her, but she should never sing again please.

re:otter

Still none the wiser on Phoenix. The internet seems to think it's Ricky Wilson, my current guess is Michael Sheen.

I forgot ailsa suggested Ricky Wilson and was concentrating on Phoenix being/ not being Michael Sheen. Then my kid noticed the ruby ring and I came up with Ricky Wilson. The song choices really threw me - I like that that was a deliberate choice and and suggested someone older. I guessed Rhino some weeks ago.

would never have got Fawn - don't remember All Saints as being that strong singers.
Jellyfish shoulda won!

Britain's Got Talent: Simon Cowell's chin implant makes him look like GigaChad.

Or rather, GigaChad's Mini-Me, as I rather unkindly thought on the bus home from work this evening.

The Masked Singer I'm A Celebrity Special. The first singer is Dunny, a singing toilet. Background music for the pre-performance VT was Salt'N'Pepa's 'Push It' and 'Ring Of Fire' by Johnny Cash. I wish I was joking.

i only just got round to watching last year's I'm A Celeb one. I don't have a clue who has or hasn't been on it so it was a bit lost on me.

Dunny was Joe fucking Pasquale. They should have dressed him in a deer costume.