Why You Don’t Need to Watch The Voice Anymore
This is a writing sample from Scripted writer Beth Weber
Before you start spinning in your chair, let me explain. I have always loved the show and used to watch every episode. I'm an unabashed, or only slightly abashed, Blake Shelton fan and am still fascinated by his romance with Gwen Stefani. But even I have become fatigued with the formula. The Blind Auditions are only really fun when someone unexpected blows the roof off with a stunning rendition of "Sunday Kind of Love" or "Sweet Home Alabama" As a result, I've learned a few tricks to save time but still keep abreast of The Voice developments.
NBC Streaming
If you have an NBC station in your cable package or you subscribe to Hulu, you can watch the show the next morning and simply fast forward through the tedious parts, which includes anything with Carson Daly and the judges' feedback, which is never really helpful and, at this point in the competition, totally worthless. If you don't want to commit that much time to the task, simply click on individual performances. You should have your favorite performers already, so you can choose to listen to them and then get on with your day.
PopVortex
PopVortex is the service that shows exactly where The Voice contestants are on the iTunes charts. So if you did not watch the show, you can look the next morning to see where the performers are positioned. Their ranking is a good indication of whether they bombed or dazzled the night before. You can then choose which performances to watch based on their positioning. Maybe you just want to know how bad the singer in spot 89 actually was or, on the positive side, you want to experience the glory of the frontrunner's efforts. It's also an excellent way to predict who will be going home in the elimination round since those in the top ten receive 10X their iTune votes.
Recaps
The biggest problem with choosing a recapper is that they are legion. Picking your favorite will take a little work, but once you find one or two, such as Entertainment Weekly's or Yahoo's expert, you can check them out a few hours after the show's end. They can also guide you to certain performances and let you know if you missed anything else, like the recent Miley Cyrus, Dolly Parton, and Pentatonix a cappella version of "Jolene," an instant classic.
The Voice will undoubtedly be around for a few more seasons, and as long as it delivers for NBC, the show should remain in the lineup. If you still like the show but don't want to commit hours to it every week, try out a few of these shortcuts. You'll be in the know with only a quarter of the effort.
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