Hollywood Weak

Every episode of AMERICAN IDOL this season has been making me want to watch the next episode less. I feel they are leading me down a path I don't want to go down. The many major changes they've made this season haven't done anything to make me want to watch the show more. I'm even mildly annoyed that I haven't even seen that much good singing in the first 4 episodes. Even on Wednesday's show, the dreaded group night, I don't think any groups performance was shown in its entirety. Each AMERICAN IDOL show has the effect of a montage or rather the lack of effect left following a montage. Sure, I see a bunch of stuff happening, but I'm not feeling any connection to the show as it meanders by. Anyone LOVING this new season? Anyone HATING it? Am I the only one who thinks about this stuff?

The group with the sexy, religious widower is a shoe-in:Also among the best of the night was the group with the fiercest chick ever on IDOL.

Bye bye Bikini Girl. Some people fell apart and some people got trapped in a train wreck. Next week... more of the same.

In Hell

Now THAT's what I call a series premiere, HELL'S KITCHEN! DAMN! Fireworks! Drama! Cursing like that of a Foreign Legionnaire! Crying and even blood! Gordon Ramsey is just plain good TV. He's SUCH a mega-dick on HELL'S KITCHEN but he's often such a kitten on his KITCHEN NIGHTMARES show. He's a healer on KN and a bad-as spank-meister on HK. I'm beginning to wonder if the proliferation of cooking shows (TOP CHEF, etc.) is contributing to America's national fattening. I love HELL'S KITCHEN! Why FOX chose to put it on opposite NBC's ONLY decent shows: THE OFFICE and 30 ROCK is a mystery. I'm videotaping HELL'S KITCHEN old-skool-style on my video cassette recorder (which Comcast Cable Corp. is going to render useless when they force their "secret box" on me). That's when I'll be getting my 2-tuner Direct TV satellite TV. Because Comcast lied. And I am SO sick of companies who are mean to their customers. Comcast sucks. Anyway, watch HELL'S KITCHEN!

I DULL

Night two of AMERICAN IDOL was total dejavu. It was so formulaic. There were the crazies, followed by the super-crazies, the people with tough lives and sad stories. There was even another Castro family off-spring. Perhaps you will remember Jason Castro from last season. He was a total goob with cool hair and a nice smile. I thought he was an awful singer and an even worse performer. Well, he has a brother who also can't sing and has the stage presence of a mic stand. Michael Castro describes himself as the manlier of the two. Yikes! I would NOT be shocked to learn that either Castro boy also had a vagina. Check out the photos. They are the LAST photos of a Castro on this blog! There are --as usual-- some good singers, but we're also --as usual-- only getting a fraction of the whole story. We won't see all the people selected from Phoenix or Kansas City until Hollywood if ever. 147 folks Made it through to Hollywood according to Ryan's voice over, including Bikini Girl, Recent Widower, and Welder Guy. Appropriately, the show ended with some girl holding her head in her hands crying out in desperation, "Oh my God, I can not believe this sh*t!" Indeed, girlfriend. None of us can.

FAT Tuesday

After a holiday TV famine that almost cost me my sanity, TV is back with an embarrassment of riches. AMERICAN IDOL kicked off its 8th unlikely season with an absolutely cracked out opening montage. With Fantasia in foreclosure I'm not sure what message she sends to future IDOL hopefuls. On the other hand, Carrie Underwood's 11 million record sales figure is catching up to Kelly Clarkson's 19 million. You can NEVER tell who's going to win from the auditions. So many people crack later. David Cook was (and still is) a pudgy dweeb who happens to have a HOT voice and a smart ear for music. And, now look at him! AMERICAN IDOL season 8 started out in Phoenix where the usual suspects were joined by a new judge, Kara DioGuardi. Who? Ok, I get it. She's worked with some very annoying people who've sold a lot of records (and -- it turns out -- she can sing quite well herself). But, I still don't know her well enough to care. Some say four judges is pointless or superfluous. The whole show is pointless and superfluous, so I say bring on 10 judges. 16 year olds can be berated and belittled by as many people as FOX can afford to pay to show up. Typical of FOX's economy with new footage, I think the first actual audition occurred about 16 minutes into the show. Let the train wreck commence! It only took 30 minutes for Paula to give Simon the finger. Paula looked great. Speaking of Paula, I love the weirdos on the show... the contestants, I mean. I prefer the indignant hot-heads compared to the emotional criers. My favorites from Tuesday's show were Michael Gurr (whoa!), Leah-Marie (Kara's only fan), and Bikini Girl (who I can NOT believe got through to Hollywood! Are you kidding me?!) Of course the weirdest shot of the whole show was Ryan kissing a woman. Technically, a woman was kissing Ryan who appeared frozen with fear and/or revulsion. Also, Ryan, it's kinda uncool to give a BLIND guy a high five (since he can't see you giving it!) Next time, maybe a pat on the back or a hug?

Speaking of hugs, THE BIGGEST LOSER: COUPLES (or THE BOB AND JILLIAN EGO SHOW) was back for the cursed week 2 episode. Cursed because contestants who lost BIG the first week often suffer from biological-backlash and only lose a pound or two after a 20 pound loss the week before. This season's episode 2 was no different. It still amazes me that millions of Americans (and I) watch this show, which is basically 40 minutes of morbidly obese people in very little clothing being weighed. I mean, who wouldn't lose as much weight as they could if they had a personal trainer who guided you through an Olympic athlete's workout every day and you had nutritional guidance and medical supervision. What THE BIGGEST LOSER (or THE BOB AND JILLIAN EGO SHOW) hasn't shown you on the show are the past winners who've ballooned since winning the show. Paraphrasing the guy said on tonight's episode it's like winner's spend $200,000 of the quarter million dollar prize on fried chicken and the rest on a car. Erik Chopin, the winner of NBC's third season of The Biggest Loser (pic) gained half his amazing 200+ pound weigh loss back and appeared on Oprah this past week to apologize to his fans and supporters for topping the scales at over 300 pounds again. It ain't easy. But it does make for fascinating TV. FINALLY!

I would like to talk about a double-standard that seems profoundly weird to me. Janet Jackson flashes ONE saggy old booby on the Superbowl and America has an actual hissy-fit causing unprecedented shock waves through the entire television industry. But, every week guys with bigger, flabbier, uglier boobs that Mrs. Jackson flash them BOTH on the scale for minutes while the camera just fixates on them. I really just don't get why men can flash their giant breasts around all day and all night and one tiny black woman flashes one titty for a second and world goes mad! Speaking of boobs...

And, NO, I didn't see Ann Actualcoulter on THE VIEW with Elizabitch Hasselcoulter. One of them is bad enough. Two would kill me! Putting either on TV is a crime against rational thought and human decency. I will probably NEVER watch THE VIEW again.

You Call That A Hole?

"Things Courtney Love Would Say?" "Yes!" Donny Osmond would confirm with zest. "You just won $100,000 PYRAMID" Oh wait, that was a dream I had. Anyway, FOX finally created an Americanized version of that Japanese game show (that's been on Ellen since last season) where people have to fit through a weird-shaped hole in a wall or be pushed --by that MOVING wall-- into a ball pit. FOX replaced the ball pit with a Gatorade tank, and gave the contestants the same INSANE uniforms to wear that make them look like Jiffy-Pop popcorn. The show is called HOLE IN THE WALL and has a "circus-like" atmosphere. I don't need Nina Garcia to tell me that shiny mylar bodysuits are simply NOT flattering to anyone. FOX put some "big boned" people in those hideous shiny suits. One woman set African-Ameican history back 30 years by doing the "Re-Run" dance from WHAT'S HAPPENIN' while wearing her mylar suit. One of her team partners had a camel toe "situation" that went clear up to her navel. TMI. HOLE IN THE WALL stars Brooke Burns from DOG EAT DOG, which is like a more interesting HOLE IN THE WALL. I like Brooke Burns because she sells crap like no one else! And, she doesn't appear to mind speaking to wet people. Other highlights include clone Ty Pennington's other clone as one of the show's lifeguards because "big boned" people CAN drown in 3 feet of Gatorade. I never would have even seen this "gem" of a show because it was listed on my TiVo as repeats of AMERICAN DAD. I was looking forward to Stan Smith and ended up with even stupider Americans. Anyway, if you're home alone and bored out of your mind... it's time to face the final hole! [that's a direct quote from the show!]

Apparently, One May Not Pants

Jamie "Look At M'balls!" Bayard was the first guy sent home from SYTYCD 4 last night. His hip-hop was weak, but two things that Nigel "Look At M'teeth!" Lythgoe --the show's judge and executive producer (the guy who is in charge of everything)-- said really surprised me. He said that he thought that "America" may have been offended by Jamie's pantsing, and he also said that going first during a loooong 2 hour show is like the kiss of death. He said something like, no one will remember the first routine by the end of the show. Well, BOTH of those reasons sound like an unfair advantage created BY the producers who could have cut the pantsing if they thought "America" would be offended. I also love that SYTYCD has SUCH an anti-American (government) bias. It's great! It's like the British's chance to get us back for getting them into Iraq. It's like he's saying, "America, you can't handle this show!" Anyway, the producers (and FOX's show-padding-machine) could have made the show 60 minutes or 90 minutes without so much stuff between all the performances. The contestant who sang first on AMERICAN IDOL this season was almost always in the bottom 3. I'll call it FOX-padding-syndrome. It's another example or symptom of the ever-growing storm of new millennium Quiz Show Scandal where reality game shows (shows with prizes and teams and such) have crossed the line of fair play and the only thing keeping the whole mess in check is that the desperate-for-attention contestants wouldn't dare cry foul for fear of not being invited to participate in upcoming shows and projects produced by the show's producers, dancers, choreographers, and crew.