The second season of The Final 1 premiered on MediaCorp Channel 5 on 5 July 2015. It is a Singaporean reality-singing competition programme created by the director of Hype Records Ken Lim. It was won by Jermaine Leong.
Taufik Batisah and Lim returned for their second season as judges, and were joined by new judge Jaclyn Victor who replaced Kit Chan. Chan later returned to the show as a guest judge while Victor was away for her maternity leave. Season one's runner-up Shaun Jansen joined the show as the host.
Similar to the previous season, the winner would receive a cash prize and a management contract worth $100,000.
Show changes On 30 June 2015, it was announced via a promotional video of the show that returning judges Taufik Batisah and Ken Lim would be serving on the judging panel for the second season. Season one judge Kit Chan did not appear in the video, and therefore was ruled out of returning to the show. It was not announced whether the show would bring in a third judge to replace Chan, though the season began with only Batisah and Lim as the judges for the first two episodes. On the third episode, it was announced by Lim that the show would be bringing in a third and final judge for the season, and revealed to be Jaclyn Victor.
Vanessa Vanderstraaten and Mike Kasem did not return to host the second season. They were replaced by Shaun Jansen, who was only officially introduced by Lim and made his first appearance in the seventh episode.
In this season, a few major changes to the format of the show was made. Contrary to the previous season, the public would not be allowed to vote for their favourites and play a part in deciding the contestants to advance in the competition. The judges would instead be the ones making the decision to eliminate contestants from the competition to ensure those "getting through to the next round will be only purely on [their] vocals and talent". The public would only be allowed to cast their votes when the competition is left with the final two contestants to decide on the winner.
Unlike the previous season where the show was mainly taped at the MediaCorp TV Theatre, most of the competition rounds would be recorded at The Ground Theatre at *SCAPE this season. In addition, apart from the final three episodes which would be shown live, all episodes would be pre-recorded and the results shows were discontinued. Results from the previous week would only be revealed during the following week's show.
The upper age limit for the contestants is reduced to 26 in this season (down from 32 the last season), which brings the eligible age-range to 16 to 26 years old.
Online and regional auditions The show is open to all citizens and permanent residents of Singapore aged 16 to 26 as of 1 January 2015. The online auditions began on 22 February 2015 and ended on 20 March 2015 at noon. To participate in the auditions, all contestants must register themselves at the official website of the show and submit an audition video of no more than three minutes long.http://www2.toggle.sg/final1/The-Final-1-Terms-and-Conditions.pdf Over 1,000 audition clips were submitted for the competition.
Auditionees who have submitted their online video were later invited to attend a face-to-face audition session conducted by the producers. The producers auditions were conducted in all of the five Community Development Council (CDC) districts in Singapore, with the contestants attending the one in the area they reside in. The audition sessions at the Central and South West districts were also opened for walk-in auditionees who did not register themselves for the online auditions.
At the end of the regional auditions, the producers shortlisted a group of potential contestants for the judges, Batisah and Lim, who then selected 12 males and 12 females to advance to the next round of the competition as the final 24.
Episode air date Audition CDC district Date Venue Number of contestants advanced 5 July 2015 Central 5 April 2015 Buona Vista Community Club 6 11 April 2015 AMK Hub North West Chong Pang Community Club 5 South West 4 April 2015 Boon Lay Community Club 3 South East Changi Simei Community Club 3 North East Tampines Changkat Community Club 7Total number of contestants advanced 24
Top 24 finalists The following is a list of top 24 finalists who failed to reach the top 16 rounds: Males Contestant Age (on show) Occupation Audition CDC district Audition song Brendon Chua 22 National serviceman North West "Jealous" Iqbal 23 National serviceman Central "All of Me" James Rainier 23 National serviceman South West "Thank You" Toh Yi Fan 18 Student South East Not airedFemales Contestant Age (on show) Occupation Audition CDC district Audition song AJ 16 Student South West "Domino" Vanessa Devi 19 Student Central "Love Me Harder" Cheryl Lim 23 Wedding and events planner South East "If I Ain't Got You" Priscilla Tan 26 Performer North East "When I Was Your Man"
Top 24 rounds The top 24 finalists were separated by gender, and performed in groups of four for the first round. The groups and song choices were all chosen by the producers. The second round involved solo performances, with the judges selecting contestants they were uncertain of moving on to the next round to perform again. After this round, the judges eliminated two contestants from each of the gender groups.
The judges later announced they have to eliminate more contestants from the remaining 20, and called out the bottom 3 contestants of each gender group. The contestants who were not called out were declared safe, and each of them had to pick one contestant from the opposite gender group to advance with them to the final 16. Two contestants (one from each gender group) were saved from elimination via majority votes by their fellow contestants, and the rest were eliminated.
Category Group Song Solo round Result Order Contestant Song Boys 1 "Teenage Dream" 1 Leon Neoh "Jealous" Advanced 4 Gareth Fernandez "I Can't Make You Love Me" Advanced 7 Sam Driscoll "Blank Space" Saved (by contestants) N/A Lee Wei Lun N/A (not selected to perform) Advanced 2 "Walking on Sunshine" 2 Brendon Chua "Jealous" Eliminated (by contestants) 5 James Rainier "I Can't Make You Love Me" Eliminated (by contestants) 6 Isaac Ong "I Can't Make You Love Me" Advanced N/A Bernard Dinata N/A (not selected to perform) Advanced 3 "Bang Bang" 3 Marcus Ng "Jealous" Advanced 8 Azhar Aziz "I'll Be There" Advanced 9 Iqbal "I'll Be There" Eliminated (by judges) N/A Toh Yi Fan N/A (not aired) Eliminated (by judges) Girls 1 "Steal My Girl" 1Jermaine Leong "Blank Space" Advanced 6 Vanessa Devi "I'll Be There" Eliminated (by judges) N/A Shanice Hedger N/A (not selected to perform) Advanced N/A Ruth Mathews N/A (not selected to perform) Advanced 2 "Uptown Funk" 2 Farhanah Khan "Blank Space" Saved (by contestants) 7 Eunice Png "I Can't Make You Love Me" Advanced 8 Odelle Sabrin "I Can't Make You Love Me" Advanced N/A Cheryl Lim N/A (not selected to perform) Eliminated (by contestants) 3 "Use Somebody" 3 AJ "Blank Space" Eliminated (by judges) 4 Charlene Su "I Can't Make You Love Me" Advanced 5 Priscilla Tan "Blank Space" Eliminated (by contestants) N/A Lou Peixin N/A (not selected to perform) Advanced
The first five majority votes cast by Jermaine Leong, Ruth Mathews, Shanice Hedger, Odelle Sabrin and Eunice Png were all directed to Sam Driscoll. Lou Peixin and Charlene Su did not need to vote as there was already a majority. Priscilla Tan received two minority votes from Leon Neoh and Marcus Ng; Cheryl Lim received two minority votes from Bernard Dinata and Isaac Ong; and Farhanah Khan received three majority votes from Gareth Fernandez, Lee Wei Lun and Azhar Aziz. Toh Yi Fan, better known as Tzire, was credited on the show as "Y.Fan". The identity of "Y.Fan" was unknown at first, as he was not featured in the first episode and only appeared very briefly in wide shots during the group performance round. However, Toh confirmed his participation in the top 24 rounds, with an uploaded picture of himself with his fellow group members on Instagram.
Top 16 finalists The following is a list of top 16 finalists who failed to reach the finals: Males Contestant Age (on show) Occupation Audition CDC district Audition song Sam Driscoll 21 National serviceman North East "Shake It Off" Leon Neoh 23 Student South East "Valerie" Marcus Ng 18 Student North West "You'll Be in My Heart"Females Contestant Age (on show) Occupation Audition CDC district Audition song Farhanah Khan 23 Student South West "I Will Survive" Ruth Mathews 17 Student North West "Lay Me Down" Eunice Png 26 Singer-songwriter North West "Price Tag"
Top 16 rounds The top 16 finalists were once again divided into two gender-separated groups, with the male group airing on 19 July 2015 and the female group airing on 26 July 2015. The top four males and top four females, along with the two wild card choices by the judges, advanced to the finals as the final 10.
Besides their performance, the top 16 contestants were also evaluated on their relatability to the audience. After the first six contestants of each gender group has performed, the two contestants with the highest score from the judges were sent straight through to the final 10. The competition then continued with last two contestants performing their songs, and the judges advanced two more contestants with the highest score to the finals.
Midway through the episode on 19 July 2015, Ken Lim introduced Malaysian singer and Malaysian Idol winner Jaclyn Victor as the third judge of the season.
Males – Relatability Order Contestant Song Result 1 Bernard Dinata "The Man Who Can't Be Moved" Advanced 2 Gareth Fernandez "Ordinary People" Advanced 3 Isaac Ong "Rude" Wild Card 4 Marcus Ng "I Want You" Wild Card 5 Leon Neoh "Mama Do (Uh Oh, Uh Oh)" Wild Card 6 Sam Driscoll "The A Team" Wild Card 7 Azhar Aziz "Stay" Advanced 8 Lee Wei Lun "Yellow" Advanced
Females – Relatability Order Contestant Song Result 1 Lou Peixin "Try" Advanced 2 Shanice Hedger "My Immortal" Wild Card 3 Ruth Mathews "Domino" Wild Card 4 Eunice Png "Poker Face" Wild Card 5 Farhanah Khan "Hold On, We're Going Home" Wild Card 6 Charlene Su "You Ruin Me" Advanced 7 Odelle Sabrin "Gravity" Advanced 8 Jermaine Leong "Lay Me Down" Advanced
Wild Card round – Marketability Following those eight contestants advancing on 19 and 26 July 2015, the remaining eight top 16 finalists competed in the Wild Card round for the final two spots in the top 10. The contestants were put to the test of their marketability as an artiste in the entertainment industry. To showcase their ability to sing in at least two languages, all contestants performed an ethnic song of their choice. Following another performance by each Wild Card contender, the judges selected two contestants, regardless of gender, to advance to the final group of 10. The episode was aired on 2 August 2015.
Order Contestant Song Result 1 Shanice Hedger "Beribu Sesalan" Advanced 2 Leon Neoh "爱我别走" Eliminated 3 Ruth Mathews "至少还有你" Eliminated 4 Marcus Ng "专属天使" Eliminated 5 Farhanah Khan "Kamu Yang Kutunggu" Eliminated 6 Sam Driscoll "第一个清晨" Eliminated 7 Eunice Png "如果没有你" Eliminated 8 Isaac Ong "我愿意" Advanced
Finalists The following is a list of top 10 finalists: