The Nigerian Idol Talent Show just moved from its preliminary stage to its second stage and to say things just got heated up would be an over-simplification of the situation.

The contestants who made it through the first auditions were met with the interesting, yet twisted conditions of having to place the fate of their Nigerian Idols journey in the hands of someone else.

The rules of the second stage dictated that a team of 3 would be setup from the 39 contestants that made it to the group round of Theatre Week, making a total of 13 teams. While this sounds dandy, the issue is that these teams were randomly selected, making some teams a mix of high and low pitches, different personalities and music taste, and different levels of resilience.

This of course makes for entertaining and juicy TV content, as the audience watch in anticipation which team will figure it out, and which would crumble under the pressure. It would appear that for some of the contestants who are naturally solo acts, and not very great team players, the team idea was a nightmare.

One of the teams that truly felt the drawback of the team stage was Team Comfort. While they performed, Comfort forgot the lyrics of the song, and immediately her team mate, Star lost all confidence and basically quit on stage. The irony is that Comfort who forgot the lyrics went through, while Star was sent home having quitted on her teammates, and being a bad team player. She would later remark that her being sent home for someone else’s mistake had been her fear all along.

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Akunna, Godwin and Rose were another interesting team. Right at the beginning of their performance, Godwin forgot the lyrics of their song and broke down, begging the judges for an opportunity to restart the performance, while the beat was still playing in the background.

Akunana and Rose, however, stepped up and kept the performance going, using their vocals to compensate. Luckily, Godwin found his confidence mid way into the performance and onto the end. However, it would be Rose that was sent home of the three, Godwin, through pure luck or the intuition of the judges managed to scale through.

Such instances were the sort of drama that plagued the contestants this round, and those who showed a combination of confidence, resilience and talent that made it through to the next round.

Do you think the team idea was a good one, or should each contestant have been given the opportunity to advance based on the strength of their individual talent and performance?

Let us know in the comment section.

Chinedu Okafor

For Chinedu Okafor, its all about making an impact with words,  creating a profound impression on the audience with the intended narrative.