NBC’s ‘The Voice’ review: Nicholas David wins night 3 of battle rounds

We played a little bit of a game during Monday night’s new episode of “The Voice”: how much time was really spent actually covering these singers performing, and how much was spent on roughly filler segment and pre-performance packaging? Here’s the rundown: for a two-hour show, we had around twelve minutes of actual singing. Twelve minutes. That’s basically the equivalent of three Cee Lo Green songs, and a reminder that these battle rounds desperately need to be shorter.

Really it is nights like tonight that remind us more of the flaws of this stage of the competition. Are there good singers? Sure, but we don’t really get anything out of seeing them duet with someone else for their survival. We also don’t hink that any of these performances held a candle to the Trevin Hunte – Amanda Brown throwndown last week.

Sylvia Yacoub vs. Joselyn Rivera (Christina Aguilera) – This was the strangest battle of the night. These two ladies were the first group out on the night, and they had to tackle a Beyonce song in “Best Thing I Never Had.” The song was clearly two big for either of them, but Sylvia managed to eke out a win. What surprised us here, though, was seeing Adam Levine use of his steals on Joselyn, who we are not sure really has that much potential moving forward. Thanks to saving Amanda, Adam is also done with this power for the rest of the round.

Dez Duron vs. Paulina (Christina) – This duel, meanwhile, was a tad more predictable and one-sided. While Paulina was not terrible on Bruno Mars’ “Just the Way You Are,” Dez was pretty close to incredible. He’s certainly got the look of a guy that the young ladies will love, even if we are not 100% sold on his ability to actually stand out.

Suzanna Choffel vs. Lelia Broussard (Blake Shelton) – Now, we turn to this week’s edition of “wait, the coaches really did that?” We’re not so shocked that Blake picked Suzanna to advance here off of the strength of her performance here (even if it felt like a soundalike of Florence Welch from time to time). We’re instead a tad more shocked that Joselyn was picked up while Lelia was not.

Julio Cesar Castillo vs. Terisa Griffin (Blake) – Somewhere, Blake has to be laughing sadistically over this. Why in the world would you make these two singers tackle the “Conga” song here? It felt almost too catered to Julio, even if mariachi is a completely different sort of music. Luckily, Cee Lo Green was standing by to save Terisa.

Sam James vs. Benji (Adam Levine) – We barely have any clue who Sam James is, but he still managed to win this battle against a guy we thought would at least advance past this round. We don’t think that Benji would have won the season, but this was really the first battle of the night that we actually full-on disgagreed with.

Nicholas David vs. Todd Kessler (Cee Lo Green) – Personally, this was the coolest battle of the night thanks solely to Nicholas’ performance. There’s just something incredibly unique not just about his voice, but also his whole vibe. When you are on a show like this, you want to ensure that you can be remembered for years down the road. That’s a hard thing to do when there are so many contestants on a season, but he is finding a way to pull it off.

Which one of these battles was your favorite, and do you think there is a way for this round to be far shorter?