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" It&amp;#039;s hard to launch a new singing show these days. After The X Factor and The Voice, what could be next? Well, ITV&amp;#039;s hoping that its new show Rising Star - which kicks off in 2015 - will be the next big thing in warble-watching. The whole idea of the show is that viewers vote on contestants in real time, with only those who pick up a certain number of votes making it through to the next stage (and seeing the big wall separating them from the audience rising up).  The thing is, though, will it be a hit? That remains to be seen, but in America their version of the show kicked off last night - with Kesha, Josh Groban, Brad Paisley and Ludacris as the celebrity panellists. So below, we present a round-up of the critics&amp;#039; reactions - maybe ITV should take note...  Rising Star: What you need to know about the new X Factor, Voice TV Line - &amp;quot;Great television cannot survive on the singular of an inanimate object alone&amp;quot; &amp;quot;&amp;#039;So wake me up when it&amp;#039;s all over.&amp;#039; That was the refrain delivered by ill-fated boy band Beyond 5 during tonight&amp;#039;s premiere of ABC&amp;#039;s reality singing competition Rising Star, but unfortunately it echoed the sentiments in my own head after watching 10 fair-to-tragic acts limp their way through a series of dated or done-to-death ditties. You can&amp;#039;t say, though, that host Josh Groban didn&amp;#039;t tip us off in the show&amp;#039;s opening seconds with this dire warning: &amp;#039;Let&amp;#039;s introduce you to the main star of our show: The wall!&amp;#039; Yes, Rising Star&amp;#039;s gigantic, much-touted barrier exhibited more humanity and enthusiasm than &amp;#039;experts&amp;#039; Kesha and Brad Paisley (and the contestants) combined. (Ludacris, at least, wasn&amp;#039;t dull while boogying his way through a series of &amp;#039;No&amp;#039; votes.) But great television cannot survive on the singular of an inanimate object alone.&amp;quot;      Entertainment Weekly - &amp;quot;Is Rising Star that next big thing? The short answer is no. The long answer? Nooooooo.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;It doesn&amp;#039;t feel necessary to harp on any of the performers from the premiere of Rising Star, nor is it worth complaining about the panel of experts who add nothing more than a flimsy amount of credibility to an otherwise gimmick-laden cheesefest, NOR is it worth revealing that I started voting yes on every contestant just to see my Twitter profile picture show up on TV. (Spoiler: It never did.) Just like the voting, the fate of Rising Star rests solely in the hands of average Americans like you. Sadly, it&amp;#039;s a joyless experiment in reality innovation that, despite best efforts from about 20% of the talent involved, never manages to make you want to swipe right.&amp;quot;      Billboard - &amp;quot;In two hours of television, there are exactly 15 minutes of singing&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Theoretically, Rising Star was made for this moment in time. Sure, it&amp;#039;s silly, confusing, absurdly self-serious, and Josh Groban&amp;#039;s glasses are almost definitely not a real prescription; but -BUT - I, like many people, still haven&amp;#039;t grown tired of watching talented strangers shock me with their talent on television... On Rising Star, I can take my many judgements, normally confined to the confining walls of my living room, and give them power. If you&amp;#039;re telling me that I can not only hold a person&amp;#039;s fate in the music industry in my very hands, but could also potentially get my Facebook profile picture that I haven&amp;#039;t changed in three years on a giant televised wall\u2026yeah, I&amp;#039;mma do it. &amp;quot;In this regard, Rising Star worked shockingly well. The &amp;#039;revolutionary live technology&amp;#039; that Groban cannot stop insisting is going to change the way we watch television forever, works just fine. There are over one million app downloads, #RisingStar is trending on Twitter... there&amp;#039;s just one big problem: the talent lineup in the premiere is lukewarm, and in two hours of television, there are exactly 15 minutes of singing.&amp;quot;      The Washington Post - &amp;quot;Judge chemistry plays a huge part, and this trio has a long way to go&amp;quot; &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s pretty much just your standard singing competition series. There are contestants, judges, a banter-y host, sad backstories, a record contract prize; the only difference is that there&amp;#039;s a lot more technology involved. At the end of the day, though ABC has hyped the show like no other, it was ultimately a pretty lackluster viewing experience.&amp;quot; Yahoo - &amp;quot;If ABC execs really want the show to succeed, then it&amp;#039;s the talent level, not a fancy LED wall, that really needs to be raised&amp;quot; &amp;quot;While in some ways Rising Star&amp;#039;s Sunday premiere was good TV, the problem was it wasn&amp;#039;t great TV (like Idol on its best nights, or The Voice on most nights). Nor was it trainwrecky or campy enough to be hate-watch fodder (like The X Factor on certain nights, or Sing Your Face Off, or the Juan Pablo season of The Bachelor). It was just somewhere in between. Like the 70% of the vote needed for each auditioner to advance, Rising Star as a show got a solid grade of C.&amp;quot; Will you be tuning in for Rising Star when the UK version arrives? Let us know below! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/news/a579599/rising-star-was-itvs-new-singing-competition-a-hit-in-the-usa/>