Netherlands 2022: S10 with ‘De Diepte’
Internal selection reveal season picks up the pace in March and The Netherlands are the first to show their hand this month…
It's easy to overate something coming out right now given the general feeling on the standard so far and this being the first new thing to come around for a while. I certainly wouldn't expect it to maintain such a high position in fan polls once we have the lot but I don't think this will completely fade away either- it is a quality song and the year is lacking in those. Perhaps more of a middle ground between where the fans have this and the current odds is more reasonable.
The Dutch works well here and is more melodic than feared. I’m interested in the behind the scenes decision however- how much of the decision is following the trend of the rise in success of native language entries and how much of it is “we don’t want to win”. I’m not as sure on the latter as I was before- the broadcaster have so far made a fair amount of effort here and I’m assuming will continue to with the staging. They’re just going to do the best with what they’ve got and on paper this isn’t too hard to stage. S10 fits the role well and some nice intimate camera angles and lighting could be enough to make this atmospherical which is essential if the public is going to buy into it.
Greece and Croatia somewhat are on similar ground whilst Portugal could also join that party and all three of these sit in the second half of semi 1 compared to the Dutch which is the only real argument I can see against this qualifying combined with little in built support for the Netherlands. The semi is elsewhere lacking in clear jury bait however and I’d expect them to have this highly, even if the televote does end up overlooking this. There’s a big range in potential and at the high end qualification becomes a guarantee. Right now I’ll go for a left hand side finish overall but there’s room for improvement and expect this to be a common ‘dark horse’ pick.
Personal Rating: 8/10
Competitive Rating: 7/10
Early Prediction: Semi 1 4th-8th, Final 10th-14th