Welcome to Eurovision Critic, the show that gets facts wrong about YOUR favorite Eurovision Song Contest! I'm u/Intelligent-Room-516, and today we'll be looking at the best Eurovision event that happened this year, Junior Eurovision 2026!

I'm a bit excited, because this episode is a first in a few ways. It's the first episode of this series and it's the first episode about Junior Eurovision.

Junior Eurovision 2026 was held on October 24 in Ta' Qali, Malta, hosted by Gaia Cauchi, Destiny Chukunyere (both former JESC winners), and some random guy. 16 countries competed for the winning title, and the winner was decided by 50% public and 50% jury (at least in theory). But does JESC 2026 succeed where other attempts fail?

*LINEUP*

The lineup of Ta' Qali 2026 is very good in quality in my opinion, one of the best lineups we've ever had in the junior edition, only overtaken by the unbeatable Paris 2021. We had the big standouts from Armenia, Spain, San Marino and Georgia, underappreciated cult classics from Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Ireland, and many more.

*WINNER*

Naré (no, not the one from 2022) won Junior Eurovision with the song "Boo!". This shows that the tides of Eurovision have moved back to the bops winning. First Bulgaria, and now Armenia. Maybe this is a good sign for Carmelle in Bangkok? And this was so deserved. Congratulations to Naré and the Armenian delegation.

*INTERVAL ACTS*

Yes, I know there were three of them. Doesn't matter because all were great. The interval was the worst thing about Eurovision 2026, but in Junior the Maltese team created top-tier interval acts

• I LOVED Obsessed with Eurovision. It was the perfection of the Melfestian interval act formula, because the Maltese actually tried to give it their own twist.

• Lou Deleuze was great, Dara was great too as always

• I loved the common song, especially how they mixed it with the Festa theme.

BNT try to find better interval acts challenge...

*GREEN ROOM*

I must confess that I love the green room. I know it's scripted but it's lovely to see the contestant interactions.

This year we had the Rim tim tagi dim dance... The rim kum kuma kama dance... Whatever it was called. Really nice addition to the show

*HOSTS*

• Destiny was great

• Gaia was great

• The guy... Welcome back Erez Tal. Why are the male hosts always so bad.

Generally it felt like they were only good in the interval act. But actually competent hosts? Last time we had that was in Tbilisi 2025

*ATMOSPHERE*

JESC always has the best atmosphere. It feels so nice because they're actually having fun, both the adults and the children. They're actually having a great time doing this show. It's definitely not Vienna 2026 where the hosts looked like they were held at gunpoint to do this

*POSTCARDS*

FESTA!!! 💃💃🕺🕺💃💃🕺🕺🪩(+👴)

*OVERALL THOUGHTS*

All in all, this show was better than Vienna 2026, making it the best official Eurovision show of 2026 so far.

1. Ta' Qali 2026

2. Vienna 2026

Eurovision Asia is coming soon so this might change.

I'll see you next time when I'll be reviewing Bangkok 2026.

I love musicals, fantasy and history (and Eurovision ofc) so I have thought that if someone made a historical fantasy musical with Eurovision songs I would be so exited. Then another day I thought well why don't I do it myself and that's exactly what I did. I wrote an entire script for a musical. So... Now what? Should I do something with it or should I just continue my life happily knowing that it exists now if only in my head?

Ps. I don't know if this is the right place for this so if it's not I'm sorry.