{alltv} Judges' noisome praise hampers 'The Voice'

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There are voices ringing in our ears, all right, but they don't belong to the contestants.

All TV talent shows spend an inordinate amount of padding time with hosts, judges and sympathy-swelling back stories. But few have ever felt as out of balance as last week's first live version of The Voice (NBC, Tuesday, 9 p.m. ET/PT), which almost managed to make the vocalists seem like intruders.

To be fair, it's hard to make space for singing when the four judges —Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton— needed equal time to tell each of the eight contestants he or she was one of the greatest artists they had ever had the privilege to hear. Clearly, the nation owes an apology to the American Idol judges for calling them soft. Compared with these folks, the Idolers were the Spanish Inquisition.

The hyperbole took hold at the start, with host Carson Daly— a vapid non-presence, though preferable to the grating tweet-tracker Alison Haislip— announcing we were about to hear "the greatest undiscovered voices in America." Contestants were told they were "amazing," "a natural," "sexy and hot," "adorable," "unique," "razor-sharp," "a star," "beautiful" and, multiple times, "one of my favorites." Merely being praised as excellent must count as soul-shattering criticism.

Compared to their taped performances up to now, the judges seemed less astute and more childish, with Aguilera being the worst offender. It could be the pressures of the live show, or it could be they've realized that the show's focus on judge-mentored "teams" — the element that supposedly sets it apart from Idol— is an empty gimmick.

Last week, Aguilera's singers were supposedly competing against Shelton's, but of course they weren't. If they were, voters would have been allowed to use their "saves" to rescue two singers from the same team, instead of one from each. (The judges each save one more.) As long as voters can't cross team lines, the "team members" are actually only competing against each other — and the whole structure is a fraud.

That doesn't mean the voting is without its share of suspense. Aguilera's team has two singers who almost certainly wouldn't have made it this far on Idol: Frenchie Davis (who was dropped by that show) and Beverly McClellan. If voters rescue either one, that at least will tell us the voting patterns that skewed Idol are not at work here.

That won't make this a better show. But at least it will give it a different voice.