NBC’s ‘The Voice’ review: Did Destinee Quinn, James Wolpert, and Juhi win in battle rounds?

Isn’t it a nice thought that “The Voice” battle rounds are almost over? The good news tonight is that there were no horrific crashes on the show. Some of competitions were a little boring, but we’re doing pretty good if that is the worst thing that happens while we sit there and complain about how there is about 15 minutes of actual battling and then over an hour of just talking, excluding all of the commercial breaks.

Did you favorites advance? Read on to find out our take on all of these vocal showdowns, along with the winner of each one.

Josh Logan vs. Michael Lynch, “Harder to Breathe” (Team Christina) – Michael looks and sounds very different than Michael Lynche on “American Idol” … apparently, all of that happens when you just add the letter “e” to the last name. This performance seemed almost slanted for Josh from the beginning. Michael has ambitions to be a Latin singer, whereas Josh was more in the vein of adult-contemporary, and he actually sounds a little like Maroon 5 to boot. Christina picks Josh, and no steal is used.

George Horga Jr. vs. Juhi, “The Best I’ve Ever Had” (Team Cee Lo) – Today’s just not a good day for Cee Lo. First, he has all of that legal drama, and then he makes the weirdest choice of the entire battle rounds. It’s almost like he didn’t really want either of them, and he wanted to just send Juhi to a coach that had more of an interest in working with her. Neither singer was perfect here, but she was clearly better and had so much more character in her voice. Cee Lo picks George, but Adam steals Juhi.

Austin Jenckes vs. Brian Pounds, “To Love Somebody” (Blake Shelton) – The strange part about this is that Blake decided to give these two a Bee Gees song, but away from that, this was an important battle in that it proved that our country mentor was not just going to keep all of his country artists this time around. (Reputation precedes you, Mr. Shelton.) By far the best of the first three battles, and one that should have actually merited a steal. But, in the end, Blake made his choice. Blake picks Austin, and no steal.

James Irwin vs. Matt Cermanski, “Counting Stars” (Team Adam) – Hey look, it’s Adam Levine deciding that he is going to give these two a song by his in-house adviser Ryan Tedder’s group OneRepublic! Coincidence? You have to know the show well enough to know what was behind this. But these two did a pretty good job on the song, but the decision was cut and dry and really without any drama. Adam picks James, and no steal is used.

Destinee Quinn vs. Lisa Gaudenzi, “Not Ready to Make Nice” (Team Christina) – We love the song, and we say that as someone who is not a country fan. We also think that Destinee is someone who could go very far this season; not only is she a great singer, but she has that sort of innate storytelling quality that works wonders, if the fanbase this year shows up for anyone other than Blake. We barely remembered Lisa at all, but she did at least do enough here to get someone’s attention. Christina picks Destinee, and and Adam steals Lisa.

James Wolpert vs. Will Champlin, “Radioactive” (Team Adam) – This was a tough one, since Will had a pretty good performance. But maybe we like James more because he just looks like we did circa 2009, and he could have been one of our classmates in Japanese class. Geek unite! Plus, he’s got a crazy-gravely voice that should hold up well in the live rounds. Both he and Will are going to get that opportunity courtesy of the knockouts. Adam picks James, and Christina steals Will.

Who do you think won the battle rounds tonight as a whole? Be sure to share some of your thoughts below, and we’ll be back with some more news on the show soon. Oh, the grade tonight is a C+. It’s still the battle rounds, people, it’s best not to expect too much from these.

Photo: NBC