In the meantime, everyone who hasn’t seen the start of the latest season of “Masked Singer” knows that behind the costume of the grumpy kangaroo “Tatort” star Jan Josef Liefers was hiding. The first of many revelations that are the purpose of the pop-sweetened talent show variant, which premiered in South Korea and is now seen almost everywhere in the world as pop’s renewed fascination with the Asian country’s culture.
For the uninitiated: “Masked Singer” means almost 3.5 hours of bizarre performances, giggling riddles and a loud applause of every oddity as a pent-up satisfaction of needs until the big revelation. It’s often hard to endure because the show is great fun and has a wonderful selection of songs for mostly unexpected stage actions – but it’s also terribly staged.
The show is way too long!
With every subsequent episode, a celebrity is eliminated. But the show is still just as long. The suspense dramaturgy is drawn out with under-complex jury talks, trivial preview clips to puzzle (who still remembers them after the show?) and endlessly stretching announcements. If there are ten candidates, then after three appearances two of them are sent on to applause – and that alone takes ten minutes. Of course it’s funny to listen to the thoughts of Ruth Moschner and the changing hobby advisers with comedy experience, but they often get intoxicated by their own curiosity and sometimes giggle for minutes about their often imprecise ideas of who is hiding behind the masked people. Two candidates an hour? There are four dancing couples flying across the floor at the same time on RTL…
There are few surprises
The list of unexpected “Masked Singer” candidates is long: Marcus Schenkenberg (squirrel), Dieter Hallervorden (chameleon), Veronica Ferres (bee), Franziska van Almsick (unicorn), Pierre Littbarski (hammerhead shark) and Paul Potts (koala). Everyone should have their own favorites, which stars they would never have associated with such an entertainment show. But otherwise? Half of the “Tagesschau” editorial team, the usual ProSieben suspects, many actors who have been known for a long time. And Ruth Moschner always sees the light after the first cryptic hint, often the audience has the right instinct after a few episodes (and still chooses Angela Merkel or Joko Winterscheidt in the app). Can it be that it doesn’t really matter who takes part in “Masked Singer” and that the fun can be found on the way to the goal?
The ads are annoying
Since the first season, when “Masked Singer” was still running during the week, the format has been accused of being strangled with too many commercial blocks, including mini-spots of a few seconds. Sure, the app should be used diligently during the breaks, the advertising it contains then brings in a nice turnover for the station. And apparently the show’s producers know very well that they can put their audience through all that publicity because they’re doing a lot of other things on the side anyway, like watching Instagram stories and seeing if they provide any indication that the celebrity might be at “Masked Singer” participates. Call it an infomercial like it used to be in the Raab shows!
You’re not supposed to hear who it is
Some candidates, especially from show business, would of course be immediately recognizable with their distinctive voice. That is why their vocal organs are often alienated. Others just have a thin and dry crispbread voice, sometimes it’s even torture to listen to it to the end. And then such candidates also get to sing really complex numbers! What is bad, however, is how bad the sound dynamics are often. You can’t really hear a voice color. As if the tightly sewn costumes, under which many sweat like little monkeys, had no more room for the competent fastening of the microphones. But maybe it is also a method that one does not guess too quickly who is behind it.
Which drugs does Matthias Opdenhövel take?
Since “Schlag den Raab” we have known that Matthias Opdenhövel is one of the few capable live moderators in this country who can really outline everything with a good joke, and who can sell even the biggest children’s birthday nonsense as a serious sporting competition with his boyishness and fun official-like attitude. So to speak, a male Barbara Schöneberger with Bundesliga ticker charm. “Masked Singer”, which sometimes seems like an elongated variant of a Joko Klaas prank, is therefore probably just the right thing for the chronically good-humored East Westphalian. If he didn’t appear on every show with his hectically shouted announcements and almost sarcastic advertising and time delay references, as if he had downed at least three Vodka Redbulls too many before the start. Opdenhövel sometimes gives the impression that he’s a cool-acting father who follows his 16-year-old daughter to a stoner party with his shirt collar open so that she doesn’t jeopardize her business administration career and he gets a chance on the toilet, fast to take a train myself.
The always enthusiastic jury
Measured by their speaking time, the jury is the real star of “Masked Singer”. Theoretically, Ruth Moschner and her changing hooray colleagues (often: Rea Garvey, who puffs and laughs heartily and is not too bad for any joke) are the actual guessing authority and not the viewers. They provide a first impression, they decipher the shamefully unclear little films that are produced for each episode. Most of the time, however, they are amazed, impressed, downright in love with every single performance. Emotion knows no difference. Everything is super super. And every time you ask yourself how Moschner – who has appeared in so many TV productions and was still out of place with her frivolous wit, but in “Grill den Henssler” as a sometimes malicious, sometimes flirty-suggestive presenter was in absolute top form – already knows after one show why Jens Riewa’s breakfast habits are hidden behind a beehive that can be seen in the picture. We suspect that things don’t always go right. But maybe Ruth Moschner is also a modern Miss Marple. Or rather a contemporary Veronica Mars. If she would at least not laugh out loud at every second good saying, a lot would have been achieved. There would actually be little to criticize about the competence and level of wit of the jury if they weren’t simply questioned too often. After countless puzzles, why does a judgment have to be made again when the masked person is finally allowed to squeeze out of his or her costume after almost four hours?
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