The first promo for the upcoming season of The Voice dropped on Thursday (Sept. 10) and, don’t worry, it’s full of all the appropriate social distancing.
The 30-second sneak peek finds Kelly Clarkson, John Legend, Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani coming back to their beloved soundstage and taking their places in the famous red chairs, which already had decent spacing between them, but appear to be even further apart now.
Stefani explains that she and Shelton been quarantining together during the entire break, prompting Legend to quip, “Wow, I’m sorry Gwen.” The show, which returns on Oct. 19, will, of course, be different this time around. Gone are the hugs, high fives and shared microphones of the past, replaced in the promo by Stefani trying to bestow a gift to a possible Team Gwen draftee using a t-shirt gun.
Spoiler alert: it’s a major fail, but Shelton steps in to save the day by offering a hand via a green rubber glove doinked on the end of a six-foot pole. It’s the first time the crew has returned to the Voice soundstage since they were forced to finish the previous season at home in the wake of the COVID-19 lockdown in March.
Season 19 kicks off on NBC at 8:00 p.m. ET on Oct. 19.
Watch the promo below.