The Four: Battle for Stardom

While it tries hard to find new ground in the singing competition genre, the series is an unsuccessful combination of the highly produced spectacle of an American Idol finals and the vitriol and listlessness that mark its audition rounds.

A cacophony of celebrity ego, bombastic production, and misguided cruelty, The Four purports to reinvent the singing-competition TV series for a modern audience and industry but is actually the worst kind of derivative: the kind with the irritating braggadocio of thinking it’s fresh. And, because it bears repeating, it doesn’t even showcase much good singing!