The Guys Can Blow, the Girls... Just Blow

The ladeez of American Idol were almost uniformly terrible last night. The lone voice singing in the wilderness that was worth listening to was Brooke, whose hippie Sheryl Crow vibe is working, if a little grating. But otherwise you can pretty much sum the evening up with this:
It's Overmyer, Amanda – the Janice Joplin-meets-Cats competition, that is.. As for the rest of 'em, Alaina's angling for the Haley Scarnato "pretty girl, pretty bad" award, Alexandrea Lushington, aside from having a perfect pornstar name, looked (and sounded) like she'd just come from a parkour session, Asia'h should be voted off on name alone, Carly, despite endless praise from the judges and nearly that much money spent already trying to make her a star, appears to me to be just an ordinary singer with a fun brogue, Kady Malloy (the Rich Little of the bunch) nearly missed both falling down the stairs and every note she sang, Ramiele apparently picked her song so that people couldn't make a "lullaby" joke off her last name "Malubay," Syesha showed a commercial in which she appeared as a middle-aged fat guy's trophy wife, and Kristy Lee Cook, despite being a hot cage fighter, stomped and posed all over the stage while belting out a bad song.

But she remains, fortunately, a hot cage fighter, so she'll stick around. The rest of the hacks? Send 'em back.

David vs. Goliath...

...who is, like many of the contestants, also named David. Last night two guys separated themselves from the rest of the Idols:
The first David, last name Archuleta, is this sweet kid whose self-deprecating smiling would be annoying if he wasn't so damn good. This kid can sing (or "blow," as Randy Jackson unfortunately often says). Remarkably talented and charmingly young, he'll face his toughest competition among the guys from...
David Cook, who's much more musically established – older, has toured, etc. He's also carving out a niche for himself as the next Daughtry, unlike Robbie Carrico, who purports to be "a real rocker" but was, alas, in a bubblegum pop band called Boyz-N-Girlz United.

Seriously. Boyz. N. Girlz. United.

Anyway, the rest of 'em, with the possible exception of now one-named Chikezie, are pretty much a loss. The other David is an over-the-top loon, Danny Noriega's got an interesting... uh... vibe to him, but I think it'll turn into a novelty act at some point, Jason Yeager seems to be auditioning to play the gay younger brother in a Dane Cook vehicle, Jason Castro looks like he got lost (and stoned) en route to a Halloween party, the Orlando Bloom guy ought to be in a Queen cover band instead, and WhatsHisFace is lost outside of songs that Bush would've sung. Bring on tha ladeez.

Not that I'm the world's biggest Kanye West or Amy Winehouse fan, but...

Herbie Hancock?
Album of the Year?
Seriously?

Eli McBeal

Ok, his last name is actually Stone, but Eli's a pretty direct descendant of the miniskirted lawyer with a penchant for whimisical visions. I suppose I should say he's a spiritual successor, as the "o" in Stone is made with a halo.

See, Eli's a big-time, big-city lawyer who takes on big cases for big clients and big money, caring only about cool cars and sharp suits, until... George Michael shows up and tells him (yes, via song) that he's gotta have faith. Ah-faith, ah-faith. He's gotta have faith-ah-faith-ah-faith.

If several reprises of the chorus don't make it clear enough, several characters directly reinforce the show's main theme, which is... wait for it... faith. Eli makes discoveries that restores his faith in his father, he argues a case that restores his faith in the justice system, and restores our faith in the institution of marriage by sticking with his fiance who dumps him when -spoiler alert- he's diagnosed with a brain aneurysm.

So do I have faith that there's a show here? Not so much. The pilot has a particularly strange vibe of over-the-top heartstring pulling (did I mention the major case concerns an autistic child going up against Big Pharma? An autistic child who's the son of the girl Eli lost his virginity to?) combined with shoot-from-the-hip philosophical meanderings. And Jonny Lee Miller plays Eli Stone with an odd sense of deliberate stammery awkwardness that I assume is supposed to be disarming and charming, but instead comes off as a hyper-intelligent insect in Armani fantasizing about George Michael.

And speaking of Jonny Lee Miller, ABC's trumpeting him as a prime reason to tune in (as in "Johnny Lee Miller IS... Eli Stone!"), which I also don't get. Here are the three things that come to mind when you say Jonny Lee Miller: he was in Hackers, he was in Trainspotting, and he was in Angelina Jolie. None of those are particularly impressive - I know, I know, visionary and harrowing Trainspotting and all that... but don't tell me that this faith-baiting show is assuming a bunch of heroin chic flick fans are part of the audience.

Regardless of who they hope will be the audience for this show, it won't include me. Pass.

Looking for the Best Show on TV?

Found.

Rerun Redux

Normally I'm not a fan of "special encore presentations," but last night's Lost did it right. ABC replayed the spectacular season three finale, Through the Looking Glass, with a pop-up video style scroll that added extra information to the on-screen action.

It served as an official peek under the tent (or at least into the writer's room ;) that illuminated some secrets of the show. The CW got in on the action, too, albeit for a different reason. They re-ran the Gossip Girl pilot with interviews and behind-the-scenes stuff – not so much in an effort to dive deeper into layers of twisted mysteries, but to court new viewers beyond the Facebook crowd buzz.

It's a perfect solution to this strike-shortened season – almost the equivalent of a free DVD-style commentary track. Rather than flooding us with wretched reality, let the writers pick up a mic while they put down their pens.

It's the end of the world as we know it...

...and I don't feel fine. In fact, in the spirit of this wretched show, I'll share a shocking revelation of how not fine I felt: during the broadcast, some leftover chinese food gave me a ripe case of the runs... which was more pleasant than watching Moment of Truth.

If you haven't followed this train as it prepared to run off the rails, Moment of Truth is a game show of sorts. Think of it as 500,000 Pyramid... of Lies! It goes like this: some desperate loser, in front of his family and friends, answers questions designed to rend his relationships apart in pursuit of a bigger bank account while a feral crowd hoots and hollers. Oh, and it's hosted by someone named Mark Wahlberg, but unfortunately he's not the one with the Funky Bunch, he's a puffy exercise in smuggery shoved into an ill-fitting suit.

If it's not clear by now, this thing is a repugnant disaster. It feels like one of those misguided faux shows that you see in near-future science fiction shows designed to illustrate how society has broken down and we'll all be living like Lord of the Flies soon. You know, like how they don't play football in 2010... instead it's "KillBall," complete with spiked walls and firepits filled with robot sharks. Or like those "I'll buy that for a dollar" segments in Robocop... except replace the satirical elements with abject humiliation and failure.

On the premier episode, a pompous personal trainer "won" $25,000 by admitting he checked out other guys' packages in the locker room and has done things in his marriage that would make his wife not trust him before he got bounced for lying about whether he's inappropriately touched any of his clients. Of course, by lying, his wife found out that he had, but that's beside the point... I guess. Then we moved on to an addictive gambler who fessed up to the fact that not only was he a member of the hair club for men, he stuffed his pants in the past to bulk things up south of the border.

At all of these things, the laugh-track like crowd went "woooooaaaahhhh" and applauded, while the wives and girlfriends alternately looked dismayed and urged their men to keep dialing for dollars. It's hideous.

And worse, it's hideously slow. The host puts a pregnant pause between every question, and the results of the lie detector tests are announced by a futuristic robot female voice that waits so long before saying true or false that her pauses prolly need to be induced. To push this metaphor into the realm of bad taste that this show revels in, Moment of Truth should have been aborted several trimesters ago.

It's supposed to be surprising and titillating, but it comes off as horrifying and depressing. If you can't stay away, DVR it and watch in the morning before you get ready... 'cause you'll gonna need a shower after.