NBC’s ‘The Voice’ review: Melanie Martinez, Caitlin Michele battle it out

If there was a problem with the battle rounds on “The Voice,” we saw it in full during Tuesday night’s new episode. As dramatic as some of these battles were, they also felt way too slow. Why are we only having three battles in an hour plus two we barely see? Do we really need to see the advisers and coaches sitting around and dishing out advice? Even Carson Daly’s introductions could be shorter.

Complaints aside, these are the acts who all ended up fighting for their singing lives over the course of this episode.

Domo vs. Cody Belewe (Cee Lo Green) – If Cee Lo had a time machine rather than a bright pink bird, he probably would go back and time and put these two against Trevin Hunte and Amanda Brown. This battle was so much weaker than what we saw from Team Cee Lo last night, and the tough part of it was that our judge was unfortunately stuck with one of them. We actually had Domo as our fourth-best person on his team (boy, we were wrong), but we said this more due to her personality rather than just her vocals. We would’ve picked her if for no other reason than that she stands out, but Green chose Cody.

Aquile vs. Nathalie Hernandez (Christina Aguilera) – this was one of those duels that really felt as though the winner was predetermined from the start of the episode. Aquile was a pretty talented guy in his blind audition, but there was nothing that really stood out about him. Meanwhile, Nathalie is more of a pop-music firecracker that Aguilera is looking for. However, we were then surprised to see that Aquile actually ended up being the better of the two, and nobody stole the 15-year old when she lost.

Melanie Martinez vs. Caitlin Michele (Adam Levine) – After two duels that we saw so little of that we really don’t have much of an opinion one way or the other, we closed things off with what was a battle between two female vocalists with quirky voices. By far, this was the closest battle of the entire episode, but it was also one where the coaches chose to be very secretive when it came to who they wanted to steal (likely so that they didn’t insult a potential loser). When Adam picked Melanie, both Blake and Cee Lo fought over Caitlin, and it was the “Forget You” singer that gave her a second life.

Who was your favorite singer during this episode?