I do wonder if Joel has known who everyone is when the mask has come off. Presumably either he's prompted in his ear at the appropriate moment and/or they dub on his announcement of the name afterwards
Glad i'm the only one wondering about the finer points of the production!
It's either a voice down the earpiece job, or on comes a runner with the name in the envelope in the recording break and camera reset between the reveal of the looser, and the slightly longer than ideal 'take it off' reveal of the singer.
Like Channel 5's The Mole, in which the final episode showed all the clues to the 'planted contestant' in there to stop the other contestants winning the challenges, whilst trying to not be too obvious, and how much on the fly production peddling actually went on to keep the mole hidden in plain sight - this show really needs a 'B-roll' programme as well, showing the inner workings after the full series has ended.
For us production geeks it would make facinating viewers - but a rather dull and inward looking one, for your average ITV punter.
Whilst I'm here. I'll unload a gripe I currently have with the programme.
Don't get me wrong, despite way off target audience demographic, I think this show is great - offbeam, surreal and good fun, but..
The bearpit I hoped it would navigate around, it's now fallen in to.
Even right up to the final, the audience at home who've been with it from the first show, should still have a shortlist of 3 or 4 possible names for at least half the acts.
Right now, two weeks out from the final - I'm quite sure I can name with 100% confidence 3 of the 5, and 75% the other two. That is way too high. The clues are plentyful and obvious.
Also, giving Unicorn's identity with a clue that only the Osbournes would know, seems to smack of Jake Shears being booking on a flight back to the states the day after recording last year, so he has to go on the 6th recording, and this 'anvil clue drop from a great height' was the only way to do it.
Yes, he could have survived the public vote, but, neither do I see a credit for the voting system independent adjudicator in the credits either.
I fear for series two, in typical ITV fashion, they'll end up ramping up the number of contestants, and shows, and with extra clues, stretch the guessing nature to wafer thin limits by the final show next time around.
Ideally, make the run 9 episodes have two groups of 4 shows, each with 7 contestants in each group- run consecutive weeks, and episode 9 is the final with the 3 remaining singers from each group (so 6 in all), and in theory, with only 4 shows per group, with less clues, the audience is still guessing at the identities for the final show of the series.
