Congestion on the daily highway

There is a big traffic jam of daily broadcasts relayed between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. It backs up in our recorders and this compact television traffic jam, formed by MasterChef Quebec, STAT, Indefensible And What talent!will not dissolve for several weeks.

This monstrous congestion does not include the 6:30 p.m. daily trains, which Street gable on Télé-Québec and Double occupancy: Mexico from Noovo. To explain the daily congestion, we could add The cheater of VAT, the game Awesome ! on Télé-Québec as well as docureality An almost perfect dinner at Noovo.

I have no choice but to watch (almost) everything. You do. After two weeks of flitting around and zapping, it’s obvious that some of these dailies will be dropped from our main rotation. But which ones?

Personally, I keep STAT And Indefensiblewithout hesitation. I’m not so fond of MasterChef and I wonder about the future of What talent! from Noovo in my TV routine. The Quebec adaptation of the British format Got Talent is very good, the line-up is magnificent, the numbers are flying high and the complicity between the four judges does not seem feigned.

In short, it is successful and quality family entertainment, but do I have the taste and, above all, the time to follow? What talent! Monday to Thursday at 7:30 p.m.? That’s the $100,000 question, the prize that will be won by the winner of this competition recorded at the Monument-National in Montreal.

A weekly 90-minute formula of What talent!in the manner of Revolutionwould have been better integrated into the schedule, I think. Because there are too many dailies and it is impossible to follow them all.

That said, I really enjoyed the first five episodes of What talent!. The host Marie-Josée Gauvin, funny, natural and bright, plays her role of big sister with the right amount of empathy and energy. Her spontaneous reactions during the performances are similar to ours in our living rooms.

The version of What talent! presented by Noovo does not descend into pettiness and humiliation, the greatest danger that awaits these amateur competitions. In fact, the four judges (Marie-Mai, Rachid Badouri, Anne Dorval and Serge Denoncourt) rarely push their red button – the big X – to tell a participant that he is bad.

And when that red X appears, it’s deserved. Let it be said, absurd comedians like Carole Frivole (who I still found funny), Mario “Superstar” Mario or the guy who made plastic chickens scream (at fucking help!) will not triumph on this stage.

One might have thought that Serge Denoncourt would play the role of the mean judge à la Simon Cowell, which is not the case. The director shows himself to be more vulnerable and sensitive than usual, without stopping himself from delivering his deepest thoughts. He is the best, the fairest, of the quartet of judges, all armed with a Stanley Cup sponsored by Shop Santé.

In five episodes of What talent!the performances were wide-ranging. We were treated to the return of Caesar and the Romans, a flawless performance by Ian Sabourin, countertenor at the Montreal Opera, wild Bollywood choreography, a troupe of twerkers, professional wrestling, a Cavalia-style horse ride, a lipsync from a drag queen, to a dog tamer as well as a number by blind comedian Marie-Christine Ricignuolo.

Two “golden buzzers”, special passes to the semi-finals, were awarded. The first to the two acrobats from Duo Soul. The second to autistic singer and pianist Samantha Charbonneau-Vaudeville, who also lives with a language disorder. It was moving to see her blossom with her mother by her side.

This same Samantha Charbonneau-Vaudeville participated in the blind auditions of The voicelast winter. No red chair had swiveled, but the host Charles Lafortune had come to join her on the tablet to support and congratulate her.

As a general rule, the four judges of What talent! remain kind and polite in their comments. The audience in the room is much quicker to boo, heckle or demand an artistic decapitation.

It must be said that the personal story told by some candidates obviously colors the judges’ predictions. For example, when singer Gabbe Trinity confides that he was exorcised three times, at the age of 13, because his ultra-religious family believed that the devil was responsible for his homosexuality, no one wants to add another layer to his misfortune. What Gabbe has experienced is already terrible, why make him suffer more?

The presence of children at What talent! also complicates the panel’s work of criticism. How do you tell a cute 7-year-old that her Latin dancing skills don’t match what you see on the stage? Revolution ? How do you explain to a 12-year-old preteen who plays the piano upside down that it’s a nice trick, but not impressive enough to win the jackpot?

Again, no one wants to be the mean-spirited judge who makes a toddler cry in front of Quebec. And as in The School of Fanseveryone wins!