Fox’s avatar singing competition “Alter Ego” is back tonight with an all-new episode, and ahead of its debut, we’ve got an exclusive first look at Fern’s performance of the Ellie Goulding song “Love Me Like You Do.”
As fans of the series know, contestants on the show perform backstage while motion-capture technology is used to create a digital avatar that performs on stage in front of the audience and judges, hiding their physical self.
Fern is Mia, an 18-year-old from New York who was recently diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome, which makes performing intimidating for her. As you can see in the full performance clip above, however, Mia wows the judges with her rendition of “Love Me Like You Do” as her avatar Fern soars to new heights (literally) right in front of their eyes.
Judge Nick Lachey is shown as being particularly impressed by Fern’s performance, and he’s flanked by fellow judges will.i.am and Grimes in this fourth episode of the series.
Grimes previously praised the concept of “Alter Ego” for the fact that it makes “gender fluidity more casual,” saying, “I think [‘Alter Ego’] making it this purely artistic expression thing, it removed a lot of the politics that I think have been stifling this country a bit. It’s just people expressing, and it was actually really beautiful and profound in a lot of moments, watching people just play with gender, even if that is not something that they want to identify with all day in the real world.”
Check out Fern’s performance and more on tonight’s all-new episode.
“Alter Ego” airs Wednesdays on Fox at 9pm ET.