Gonna be at work during the #Eurovision final…

…so I’m gonna post a bunch of Post-Semifinal Feelings now, and then go into Spoiler Avoidance Mode.

General stuff:

• Peacock has the US Eurovision streaming rights this year, which means I went from “never heard of it” to “signing up for an account” in the space of 1 google search. Bad sign for their advertising department, but a hat tip to their rights-buying department
• Shame the “subtitles” are just auto-generated English-language closed-captioning, no help for any of the non-English songs
• Real talk, I get a little teary every time it cuts to another little CGI house in the next country, with the signals bouncing house-to-house to draw lines that connect them all together
• Absolutely perfect way to celebrate the contest taking its first step out of lockdown, while honoring and being there for everyone (and I bet these were designed before they knew for sure that the whole show wouldn’t be remote)
• There are always a bunch of pride flags visible throughout the shows, but it looked like this year there was a particular emphasis of trans flags. I’m into it
• Are there always this many songs with “giant words in block letters flashed on the screens” as part of the staging? I’m not into that. Give us more show-don’t-tell in the visuals, please
• Four people sure did wear basically the same dress, huh? (It’s cool, it’s a good one, they sure could’ve done worse)

(Remember that year I did a whole Eurovision-themed storyline and timed it to match up perfectly with “the contest not happening”)

Song opinions:

• Favorite songs going to the final: Sweden’s “Voices“, Finland’s “Dark Side“
• Favorite songs that got robbed: Ireland’s “Maps” (I love that the presenters had to do some extra patter before they started — that set must’ve taken so much setup)
• Favorite staging/performance for songs I was meh on: Ukraine’s “Shum“, Greece’s “Last Dance“, Moldova’s “Sugar“, Bulgaria’s “Growing Up is Getting Old“, Latvia’s “The Moon is Rising“
• Staging/performances that got robbed for songs I was meh on: Australia’s “Technicolor“, Denmark’s “Øve os på hinanden“
• Songs that need to make out: Cyprus’s “El Diablo” and Norway’s “Fallen Angel“
• Wouldn’t be a real Eurovision without one of these: Iceland’s “10 Years” (The outfits! Those wind machines! The wobbling at the end when they do a fake freeze-frame!)

Personal favorite so far is Sweden, which probably means it won’t win, because my favorites never do. (Speaking of songs that got robbed: Waterline.) Only watched the semifinals, none of the songs from auto-qualified countries, so maybe one of those will turn out to be my new favorite? …and then not win either, lol.

Guess we’ll find out tomorrow night.