Monday, May 15, 2017

Review: Eurovision 2017

And it was that time of year again. Fresh after Doctor Who and dominating social media for at least three and a half hour to the confusion of Americans, the Eurovision was back.


And the winner turned out to be Portugal this time around. The song, Amar Pelos Dois (Loving For The Both of Us), performed by Salvador Sobral was something of a divisive win, going by social media. Clocking in 756 points, the song certainly had it's fans and represented the country's first ever win but at the same time, I found myself more drawn to songs from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and Cyprus to name a few that might have been somewhat more deserving. Still though, while I found the song a bit overwrought for it's own good, I do think we've had worse winners in the past (and obviously better ones too). The male and female ratio of contestants seemed pretty on point with no real awful entries but there were some weaker ones in the mix too.


Of course with a male winner we also had a rather male dominated presenters with  Oleksandr Skichko, Volodymyr Ostapchuk and Timur Miroshnychenko taking the reins. I have to be honest, while I definitely can see why there was a commentary about having three white male hosts amidst the Celebrate Diversity banner this contest was trying to have, they were okay enough as hosts. I do think maybe two of them would've sufficed to an extent and to be honest, they only really came to life in one moment.


The spoof scene where the trio were being coached on being the best host by 2015 winner and 2016 presenter, Mans Zelmerlow, who managed to be his usual charming and fun self, if not quite as shirtless as he was when presenting with Petra Mode last year. That's three years in a row the guy has had a presence on the Eurovision and to be honest, I wouldn't object if they came up with a contrived reason to include him again next (and Petra too).


As for the rest of the night, we had a streaker who managed to get on stage during last year's winner Jamala perfoming again, which was annoying while the UK pulled in respectable numbers with Lucie Jones scoring 111 points this year. As for Ireland, once again our entry didn't make it into the final (we have got to stop using Louis Walsh, people), Russia bowed out of the contest itself and there was also the fact that our grown up hosts were somewhat upstaged by a little girl from Junior Eurovision. It was an interesting enough night but compared to last year, not quite as spectacular as it should've been though.

The Perfect Host Sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMFoRgqS5eE

See you again next year when Portugal host the ceremony.

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