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Sneak Peek: Don’t Stop Believing

Don't Stop Believing premiered in the UK on the weekend and netted 1.5m viewers, which is considered an ok figure for Channel Five.

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Don’t Stop Believing premiered in the UK on the weekend and netted 1.5m viewers, which is considered an ok figure for Channel Five.

Rock Eistedfodd meets Battle of the Choirs?

But the Brits have ways of doing television that aren’t necessarily the way we would do them here. As revealed by TV Tonight, TEN has announced an Australian version for 2011.

Reckon we should be able to improve on their host and “Supergroup”….

21 Responses

  1. I saw this ep too and thought how awful it was. The fact that Singer Station got through on the public vote (because of their impoverished backgrounds, blah, blah, blah) really killed it for me.

    And yes, like a few people have said, it’s a rip-off of our Battle Of The Choirs format, and the supergroup was terrible. Randomly putting supposedly good singers together never work, and they’re adding five more of these singers this week! Arrgh!

  3. This looks awful! I thought this was going to be good but its not what i was expecting from this series at all. TEN are going to have their work cut out for them if they are going to make this a hit next year.

    It is basically a rip off of Battle of The Choirs with a more rock type aspect. At least BOTC was good.

  4. The thing is they are trying to copy Glee. A big draw card for Glee are the impressive, well choreographed and well timed performances the glee club put on. People are also drawn by the creativity they put into the covers.

    But what the producers didn’t take into account how much editing had to be done to make the Glee performances good. A lot of the effect in Glee performances also comes down to the motion of the camera and its angles and amplified beats. These things cannot relate well in a live show. It’s going to be a show where it will be almost impossible to find groups that perform naturally And make it up to the standards seen in Glee.

    Even if TEN pull off a successful first season, it’s not a surviving show. It too will be axed in due course.

  6. The Supergroup idea looks good on paper but, after watching that video, I’d say it doesn’t work. The premise is gathering soloists to form a group, which leads to a bunch of individuals trying to outperform eachother rather than a cohesive group. The differences in the individuals’ voices/singing styles would also reduce the harmony of the overall performance. I did find that the quality of the judging was better, but maybe that’s because I’m used to Vile, whose sole purpose is to tell people how fat they are, and Marcia, who never really has anything specific to say or anything other than “You go, girlfriend.”

    Hopefully, Ten learned from Idol’s mistake of having too much padding but I doubt it. I also doubt that a show as derivative as this will take off. It’s like a slightly less daggy version of Battle of the Choirs.

  7. I’ve watched this episode. Apparently it’s the first thing Five has ever done live and it shows. Ten, as a major network, will automatically have better production values but there are some format problems they’ve absolutely got to address:

    1. Once a week won’t work. In the Five format the six choirs performed once; the public voted while the “super group” sang; the winner was announced and the second and third performed *the same thing* again and the judges picked one to proceed. This all happens in 90 minutes. That’s ridiculous and boring. Split the original performances and the winner/re-performance into separate episodes.

    2. Longer voting leads to better results. The winner this week (1) were out of tune, (2) were out of sync, (3) had the most basic choreography, (4) were simply a homage (at best) to the performance of that song in Glee. But they had the best soppy back story. Longer voting and this is less likely to happen.

    3. The supergroup sucked. They were out of tune and, as Coutney said, they copied the Axis of Awesome (itself a bit of a YouTube sensation). TEN has promoted the supergroup as being professionals and leaders/tutors for the groups. Let’s hope so.

    4. Weak competitors. The first group (runners up) were OK; second (eliminated) were marginal but a nice idea; the third (Manchester Show Choir; eliminated) were huge and awful and so was their mash-up; fourth (eliminated) only had six members and were completely forgettable; fifth (winners) put up an awful performance as I mentioned above; six were strangely homoerotic and tuneless and generally errgh. I don’t know if TEN can do much about it but coach the groups they intend to perform before they go to air.

    So, Ten have their work cut out for them, that’s for sure.

  8. Oooh… 🙁

    I just watched the attached videos and they were not very good

    This seems more like a school eisteddfod competition or new faces talent show

    They are really not that good and I don’t think people will warm to it after

    experiencing at least half good singers and dancers on other shows

  9. The supergroup routine= Axis Of Awesome Four Chords. I like the supergroup. I hope Australia can make this work, because it has such a good potential.

  12. Yep TEN have their work cut out for them if they are going to make this work. But I have the confidence they can make it work. Really they’ve taken other formats before and totally transformed them; they no doubt have a knack of doing it.

  13. What a mess.

    The Supergroup was all over the shop. And none of those performances sounded even remotely good. I guess the writing was on the wall with Britain’s recent Eurovision performances.

    Sure they’ve pumped out great X-Factor type pop stars, but that was abysmal.

  16. the concept sounded good, but looking at that i am less excited about it. if thats the best talent the UK can get what’s ours goin to be like. although if anyone remembers that show battle of the choirs on 7 some of the show choirs on that were quite good, most better than all the vids i’ve seen from DSB UK.

    just reading about the format Don’t Stop believing seems to have an almost identical format to battle of the choirs heats, finals, grand final. even that opener is similar to what BOTC did. just this has a bigger stage.

  17. I have some confidence that Ten will do a much better job than this. If not, it will be a massive disaster. Every single element needs improving, especially the opening theme & graphics… and the talent and singing and dancing. Everything!

  19. Oh dear, I think Ch10 should just leave that one alone. Bad performances all round. So cheesy. Glee works well because of the brilliant writing/acting/singing and its all about character development which allows fans of the show to relate. This just has nothing going for it at all.

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