“Horror is the removal of masks,” playwright Bertolt Brecht allegedly stated. “Horror is the removal of masks that reveal sweaty C-listers you haven’t thought about in ages,” I’d amend.
Because, severely, it’s time for The Masked Singer to hold it up.
Tonight marked the Season 8 finale of Fox’s bizarro singing competitors. If you’re uninitiated, listed here are the fundamentals. The present, an American model of a South Korean format, showcases “celebrities” (the citation marks will develop into evident in just a few moments) who don elaborate costumes and carry out covers of widespread songs whereas a panel of judges makes an attempt to guess which well-known persona is behind the masks. Each episode additionally contains a number of clues concerning the performers’ true identities.
The Masked Singer debuted in 2019 and, yeah, it was enjoyable for some time! Silly enjoyable. Mindless enjoyable. The sort of enjoyable you could possibly watch together with your grandma, your child and/or your cat, and everybody would have an excellent time. Week to week, audiences tried to discern the contestants based mostly on little greater than their voices, the clues and the guesses that judges Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy, Nichole Scherzinger and Robin Thicke would toss out in the course of the broadcast. (Not that that final half helped a lot, given how wildly unrealistic the judges’ strategies usually have been. No, Ken & Co., Denzel Washington was by no means going to be underneath the sequins and feathers.)
And when COVID-19 had us all huddling at dwelling, scared and on the lookout for varied method of diversions to take our minds off a really scary actuality, in fact The Masked Singer was precisely the kind of factor we needed as a break from doomscrolling and washing our produce with dish cleaning soap.
But the present usually made selections each weird (Gladys Knight got here in THIRD?! behind Donny Osmond and T-Pain in Season 1) and arbitrary (that sorta/kinda/probably not fan voting factor), and two comparatively latest developments ought to function its loss of life knell.
First, the choice to have former New York City mayor/President Donald Trump crony Rudy Giuliani compete as Jack within the Box in Season 7 was a crass seize for… notoriety? Red state love? I’m nonetheless undecided.
Second, this season’s main format change had just one singer transfer on every week, gutting the week-to-week suspense that was greater than half of the present’s enjoyable. Because if I’m going to dither about whether or not somebody carrying an outsized giraffe costume is Beverly Hills, 90210 alum Brian Austin Green or Backstreet Boy Nick Carter, I wish to work for it, damnit.
The entire shebang simply feels drained now. And to my earlier level about “celebs”: This season’s unmasked gamers have included Blossom’s Joey Lawrence, Exorcist star Linda Blair, Ghostbusters crooner Ray Parker Jr. and The Brady Bunch boys — most of which might be meh will get even when this present have been airing in 1992.
For the file, this season’s winner was Harp, who was revealed to be Glee’s Amber Riley. The runners-up have been Lambs, a three-person entry that was revealed to be woman group Wilson Phillips. And to invoke that trio’s greatest tune, whereas I do know issues can change, and issues might go my approach, I positively hope the present does not maintain on for another season.
But when you disagree, cool. You’re in luck: The present’s vacation particular airs subsequent Wednesday at 8/7c.
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