Generally, the judges are a problem for this show: Morissette, Lachey, and host Rocsi Diaz seem benevolently disengaged, while will.i.am and Grimes are enthusiastic in a flailing, exaggerated way. The person within the machine had believed they were transcending a conversation about gender and being seen for who they really were the judges’ dragging gender back into it feels small, and mean, and as though the show doesn’t have anything to say about the technology it’s using other than that it’s cool but weird. “I didn’t know where I fit in, because I didn’t,” she says, celebrating that her digital self “doesn’t meet expectations.” After Seven’s performance of Hozier’s “Take Me to Church,” judge will.i.am comments that “he brought Seven, and the depth, to a whole different level.” A brief controversy emerges among the judges over the gender of the “real” Seven, with Morissette remarking, “She’s a woman! But I love that we can’t tell” as Nick Lachey looks astounded and confused. This tendency is most pronounced when a woman who complains of having been misgendered for what she calls her “deep voice” gets the opportunity to perform as a gender-nonconforming individual named Seven. The show discounts the possibility that the very concept it introduced - performing in character - has merit of its own. But treating the “Alter Ego” technology as the bridge to allow people to perform as themselves suggests that there’s something less-than about the very thing we’re being asked to spend an hour watching. To wit: One gentleman says that he feels uncertain on stage because he’s not “handsome and cool.” The judges reassure him that he really is, which is well-meant, kind, and very much in the late-”Idol” inspirational vein. The idea of this new technology as interesting in and of itself can’t be allowed to stand. And why they’re performing under digital disguise at all tends to be reduced and overexamined at once: The singers are insecure, for one reason or another, which the judges will probe at some length. When judge Alanis Morissette asks a singer performing under the name Misty Rose why that’s her stage name, we’re told that Misty is her cat’s name and roses have many layers. We lack real insight into why, exactly, contestants chose the particular personae they did, and what little we get doesn’t really nourish.

Alter ego game guide