Still January you say? And a particularly cold and rainy Saturday in Lockdown #3000? Lucky we have something to look forward to tonight. Yes, the LWAT Family have fallen hard for the Masked Singer, with the possible exception of the moody preteen who considers himself above all this ridiculousness. Because it is ridiculous. But that’s what makes it great.
I’ve always found it hard to get into TV singing shows because they’re mainly quite dull – once the no-hopers are eliminated early doors, it’s just week after week of earnest young things finding extra notes to put into songs you don’t really care about. And they’re also savage – as the actual singing is so dull, the entertainment comes from how mean the judges can be and how they can destroy someone’s dreams with a carefully-placed “meh”. It’s a bit close to home and deeply uncomfortable to watch.
Whereas, the Masked Singer has no malice in it whatsoever. There is a variety of competence levels on show – tho this season, the vast majority seem to be pretty good at the singing bit – but the judges lavish out praise and hold back on the abuse. The singing competition is a mere sideline in the whole glorious guessing game. And the contestants are already successful in their careers, so the stakes are anything but high.
Instead, the heated competition is betwen the four judges on one side and us at home on the other. Can we figure out who that giant purple blob is before they do? What did those words on the school desk mean? Why does Viking pronounce his name with the emphasis on the last syllable? What does any of it mean?
***From hereoin, spoilers for Season 1 are contained. I assume this won’t affect your life in any significant way***
To start with, I was sceptical about the whole show because I assumed it would be the usual tedious reality TV stars that always turn up on these things – your Big Brother and Gogglebox wannabes who are so desperate to keep their faces on TV that they’ll put a giant duck suit right over those faces. But then I saw on Facebook that Justin Hawkins of Darkness had been unveiled as Chameleon and suddenly my interest was caught. It would turn out that three of the singers would be from the indie/alternative world. That giant duck? Skin from Skunk Anansie. Skin! The angriest woman of the 90s! (And that’s a tough title, given how many angry women there were in the 90s) The angriest woman of the 90s singing opera in the giant duck suit! How is that not first class telly?
And the rest of the ‘slebs were no mere wannabes either. My kids hadn’t heard of most of them but they knew Ce Lo Green alright from Teen Titans Go! and they were suitably impressed that he would take time out of his schedule to bumble around in a monster costume for a few weeks.
Which is why we got straight into the second series. It gives me and Eva something to talk about in a month that is depressingly free of any kind of excitement. We can research together and rewatch the clues videos and scour the internet for fan theories.
Yes, I know it’s all a load of superficial pap but so is Bridgerton and I’m enjoying that too (NOT with Eva tho!) A bit of escapism is exactly what we need in this grey, cold month when the world outside is a dangerous and scary place. If you can overcome your scepticism and give it a go, you might just find yourself agreeing with me…
Disclaimer: Not a sponsored post. We’re just fans 😉
