For the past few weeks, our own Christina Uticone has been giving us the blow-by-blow of each episode of NBC's The Voice. Whats started out as a mildly promising venture in which contestants were chosen based on their voices alone has become the inevitable self-destructive cluster in which the best performers are weeded out because of a gimmick. The show is, in the word of Cher Horowitz, a "Monet": It looks from a distance, but once you get up close, it's just a big mess.

Tuesday night's episode prompted reader What is going on?? to remark:

I loved this show in the beginning, during blind auditions. I still enjoy it a lot, but I can't help thinking that every judge has picked the lesser singer in the battle rounds, with just a few exceptions. It's so obviously wrong that I am waiting for the show to throw a big twist, like flipping the winners into the losers pool of contestants.