The Voice is like ever decreasing circles. An endless succession of arbitrary rounds designed to stretch out a competition that’s terrified of its own finals.

After 11 weeks of contrived padding, just three weeks of live singing. Why? Because when the public vote starts, the public stops watching.

Although, this year it might be vaguely interesting. Will the viewers be as PC about transgender Jordan as the right-on panellists? Somehow I doubt it.

I wish Paloma Faith’s comeback girl all the best. But if she goes on to win it will make a mockery of the entire show. She was summarily rejected at the blind auditions… but mysteriously reappeared after “someone dropped out”.

So she made the grade not because they knew nothing about her… but because they knew an awful lot about her. Which defeats the whole point of the format.

Naturally, as we reached “the Knockouts”, Jordan became one of Ms Faith’s chosen ones. It’s not her fault, but all this smacks of shameless favouritism.

Anyway, at the end of the Blinds, the four judges of the apocalypse had all picked teams of 12. After the bizarre Battles, they reduced them to eight. Now they’re whittling them down to three. The only reason for the constant hurdles is to create wave upon wave of theatrical rejections and oceans of fabricated drama.

Meanwhile, listening to Paloma, George, Ricky and enemy of the English language Will.i.am, you’d think we’re thrilling to a parade of potential superstars. As opposed to a bunch of wildly over-praised pub warblers.