NBC’s ‘The Voice’ review: Andi & Alex, Viktor Kiraly, Chance Pena battle it out

“The Voice” continued its traditional Battle Rounds on Monday night’s new episode, and of course brought to the table many a varied performer. There were some steals, there were some pleas, and there was a whole lot of time wasted. Maybe if we complain enough about just how overstuffed the show tends to make these, maybe at some point the show will consider changing things up with their edit.

Below, updated live as per usual, are some of our quick-takes from the people who hit the stage.

Blind Joe defeats Blaine Mitchell – This was a somewhat surprising outcome given that musically, we haven’t seen much from Blind Joe that makes him stand out from the other people Blake Shelton has on his team. Obviously, he is a judge, though for a reason! Adam Levine ended up stealing Blaine, which is fine because we thought this was a pretty big step up from his audition earlier this season.

Viktor Kiraly defeats Cassandra Robertson – Cassandra was very good in this Battle! It’s unfortunate that she had one of the biggest challenges of the entire round of the competition. Viktor is very talented, but Adam Levine as a mentor is probably more than aware that he already has a following. We’d be shocked if he is not present during the live shows, where he could make a tremendous impact and go far.

Evan McKeel defeats Riley Biederer – These two apparently became good friends in practicing for this battle, so obviously Evan was thrilled to learn that Riley was stolen after this. We don’t really think that either one of them was particularly stellar vocally, but they were good entertainers throughout. Lots of efforts was put into this and playing to the crowd. This is why they’re the sort of people who could do well in the live shows.

Korin Bukowski defeats Chase Kerby – Was there any other choice here? No offense to Chase, but Korin had this one for Team Gwen. She’s been great every time we’ve seen her in this season, and in between Viktor’s performance and this one, the show seemed to get many of the predictable performances out of the way early.

Braiden Sunshine defeats Lyndsey Elm – We’re surprised that this particular Battle was not completely given the montage treatment, given that we don’t actually think there was that much of interest in here from start to finish. Neither have that spark or that energy that you would need to win the show. The best hope for Braiden on Team Gwen is that he gets a lot of the young votes from teenager girls who watch him on YouTube.

Andi & Alex defeats Chance Pena – The Battle of the night, and two people who really should not have been paired up together in the first place. The ladies were just so great that Adam Levine really did not have much of a difference choice to make here. Chance got a steal and joins Team Blake, and we’d consider this as a whole to be a nice way to wrap up the night.

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