Tag Archives: TV

American Idol: Worst Season Ever

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Must the judges continue to lick David Archuleta’s balls after every single song this “Aw shucks!” nerd delivers? His silky smooth voice hasn’t found its niche, except perhaps as a second rate Michael Buble/Josh Groban. Archie never met a run he didn’t like, I can’t remember the last time I heard the dude sing a melody. Is he so “cute” and non-sexually threatening that no one dares critique his completely boring adult contemporary ballads lest he not become a marketing machine to pander to 14 year old girls? Yuck.

The reason I think this season stinks is because through the entire season, I have only had one “gave me chills” performance: David Cook’s take on Lionel Ritchie’s “Hello.” Everything else pales in comparison.

Usually, there are songs that make me shut up and songs that can give me pause as I think “this is awesome.” There were several great moments – I loved Carly’s “Crazy On You,” and I really dug Jason Castro’s “Hallelujah.” Many will rally for some of Chikeze’s performance during Beatles week, but for me, I can count the “Wow, cool!” moments on one hand, and the “gave me chills” moments number just one. And while Syesha gets better and Cook solidifies his fan base, tweenage girls everyone should prepare to be let down by AI7 Idol winner David Archuletta’s utterly dismal first album.

The Problem(s) With American Idol

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EW.com is running a piece on possible changes to American Idol. American Idol is – as we speak – jumping the shark. Everyone is trying to predict why. I’m going to give you all the reasons right now.

## 1 ##
First and foremost, as Howard Stern said in his broadcast yesterday, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Idol used to be one hour for the contest, 30 minutes for results. This season, it was 2 hours for the performances, 1 hour for results. The results shows are way too long, way too cheesy, the divisions are contrived, the call-taking is stupid, the banter is obnoxious and worthless, and the results are purposely not revealed until the last 2 minutes. In the beginning of the season, it aired thrice a week in 2 hour specials, requiring a SIX hour commitment. And most of the funny “bad” auditions are now from actors trying to be bad to get on TV, making it mostly worthless. Recently, the performance shows have slowly scaled back in time, but should just be performances. Which leads me to…

## 2##
The guest judges are mostly worthless. It used to be they were actual judges. Now they are “coaches.” But those bits are worthless to me, because I’m judging the singing, not the singer, and the producers are making the contestants into people, thereby making the show a popularity contest. That means the winner is not the best singer (as evidenced by Carly’s recent ouster), but rather, the one who inspires the most phone calls. And since it’s mostly younger people calling and texting, the winner is really just whomever 14 year old girls like, explaining the continued success of the entirely mediocre, completely clumsy “Close-eye” Archuletta, a semi-decent singer who continues to receive over-lauded praise for completely average performances, frequent lip-licking, and lots of awkward laughing. Time to return the general themes like “the 1990s” or “country” or even “anything at all written in this decade.” But instead, we get “Mariah Carey.” Yuck. You do not need a special coach every week. In fact, I’d like to see a singer sing something like they might release. I don’t see most guys singing Mariah Carey songs on their albums. Certainly Andrew Lloyd Webber was a fun coach, but what does being able to – or not being able to – sing his music have to do with being a deserving Idol?

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The judges are completely worthless, even Simon. The judges ought to offer CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. Unfortunately, this is what we typically get:

Randy: “It was only a-iiight fah me, dawg. It was only a-iiight. It was pitchy in the front, but you kinda worked it out in the middle, I don’t know if it was your best performance.”
Paula: “Blah blah blah, I’m @#% crazy and make no sense. You look pretty. Blah blah blah.”
Simon: “Dreadful.”

Entirely worthless. I can’t remember the last time I heard something like “you need to focus on annuciating better” or “you should try listening to the words of the song a little closer to get a better connection.” How about “You project really well. I’d like to hear some power in your higher notes though”? The judges should be wholesale replaced. They all are completely and totally tired, boring, and empty. They do no good. Their only job, it appears, is to pimp the producers’ predestined candidate.

## 4 ##
Stop allowing unlimited votes. Period. Limit it to 10 votes per number. Or 1 vote per household. Or 2 texts per phone. Something, anything, to prevent speed dialing tween girls from monopolizing the vote. I know, I know, they are your target, since they are the only ones dumb enough to buy your pre-packaged, vanilla, over styled, dumbed down package you’ll eventually call the Idol, but you condescend to us and we lose interest. We all know when someone has been chosen by the producers to fail and when someone has been blessed by Mr. Lythgoe to succeed.

## 5 ##
Last but not least, get rid of your silly “mosh-pit.” The screaming and over-abundance of teenagers just reminds me, and a large part of your audience, that we are not your target, and we should really be moving on to a new channel IINS.

American Idol: The Most Talented Season Ever

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I’ve been sick for over a week now. A nasty bug has been going around my office, and last Friday I started developing a fever. I slept for 3 straight days. A week plus later, I’m still with fever and now bronchitis and pharyngitis and I’m on antibiotics and narcotic cough syrup, my chest and arms are sore from coughing so much, I’m a wreck. Yesterday I stayed home, and one of the habits I have is turning on the TV and then sleeping with it playing in the background.

It just so happens that I have the American Idol season 5 final still on my DVR. So, since mid-day TV generally stinks, I put that on. For those who can’t place it, season 5 included Taylor Hicks and Katherine McPhee, Elliot Yamin, Chris Daughtry, Paris Bennett, Kellie Pickler, Lisa Tucker, Ace Young, Mandisa, among others. Let me tell you: these kids could sing. They put this year’s crop to shame with their tight harmonies. When the women did their medley, I was seriously impressed. In retrospect, even guys who weren’t even front runners still had some serious pipes.

I also decided that despite the fact that I railed on Katherine McPhee recently, she really should have won season 5. She was – or rather, is – an outstanding vocalist. She truly outsings everyone in season 7, including the very entertaining David Cook, powerhouse Carly, and even the “can’t-do-no-wrong-but-ever-so-awkward-lip-licking” David “Archie” Archuletta. The power and grace she displayed in the finale (and what I recall her displaying the rest of her season — but then, those memories are a few years old) are really of professional quality.

Take a look at the American Idol website and peruse the past seasons. I think it’s a safe bet that season 5 included the most talented singers. Obviously, we’ll never know what kind of musicians many were, since until this season, one wasn’t allowed to use instruments. I also think it’s safe to say that without the use of instruments, people like Brooke White and Jason Castro might have been voted off the island weeks ago, since they both have displayed a propsensity for massive awkwardness without an instrumental crutch.

In reviewing the seasons for the “most talented season ever,” I also think it would be neat to have an American Idol “all star” bracket. If I were to compile a list, my top 12 might include Katherine McPhee, Chris Daughtry, Melinda Doolittle, Trenyce, David Cook, Kelly Clarkson, Anwar Robinson, Carrie Underwood, Paris Bennett, Elliot Yamin, Bo Bice, and Clay Aiken; I think it would be hard to leave Clay Aiken out, despite my general reaction to him – measles, a dry heave – you can’t deny his killer voice.

I Reckon I Willn’t Be Watchin’ Firefly

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This weekend, I took a stab at the “Firefly” series via the movie Serenity which was delivered to me via HBO. I tried, I really did, but I bailed after about an hour.

I generally believe that even though I don’t watch much Sci-Fi, I probably would like most of it by nature of the fact that I am a scientist and (mostly) a nerd, and I can get on board with complex, scentifically sound ideas. So I figured this would be a good starting off point.

Let’s start here: I really like Nathan Fillion, I really do. I loved him in Two Guys, A Girl, and A Pizza Place (seriously) where he played Johnny. But whoever wrote his “accent,” you know, the one that pretends that this space captain who grew up on a farm has a hick twang, should be slapped around. Even Fillion couldn’t convincingly tell me we’re supposed to be believe that. Ditto for his female first mate, who threw in some extra verb-disagreement. I just couldn’t get past the strained dialogue.

Also, the plot left me clueless. I didn’t know what the plot was going in – I just knew it was based on Firefly. But the idea that I was supposed to understand that some of the creatures ate humans; the thought that the kung fu/gun combo seemed natural to all characters; the concept of the skinny girl as the sole engineer in the galumphing spaceship trying not to be so cliche, it just didn’t work.

This movie was made for fans of the show, not for the rest of us. So yeah, as Malcom Reynolds might say, “I reckon I willn’t be watchin’ this show.”

The Precariousness of Covering the Beatles

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Having had a chance to reflect on Tuesday’s American Idol Top 12 performances, featuring music from the Lennon/McCartney songbook, I feel I can now properly and more accurately express myself. The Beatles are likely the most covered band of all time. But for some reason, some covers just work and others just don’t.

Take, for example, Katharine “Kat” McPhee’s take on George Harrison’s Abbey Road masterpiece, “Something.” No doubt McPhee can sing, she can actually hold a note in tune longer than most the “most talented top 12 evar!” But the song was scary bad. Why? First of all, she committed the cardinal sin of adding her own lyrics to a Beatles by closing the song with “…it’s in the way he moves” over the song’s signature lick. Secondly, she changed “she” to “he,” which is another no-no. And lastly, she kept the song mostly the same while changing some of the intonations punching different syllables. In a package, it was painful.

On the other hand, Ramiele Malubay’s take on “In My Life,” universally panned as “boring” was actually a nice, albeit unadventurous and sleepy. It was unintrusive. Compare that to David Hernandez, whose run-infused, manic take on “I Saw Her Standing There” was anything but vanilla – it actually hurt my ears to hear it. Kristy Lee Cook – aka “Wide Stance” – took on 8 Days a Week in a manner I thought might have suited the song well if the particular arrangement wasn’t so frenetic. In exchange for the disasterous tempo and insane over-country-tude, she delivered a performance so embrassing that YouTube ought to ban it as “offensive.” The only redeeming quality was that she let the song end with its signature guitar outro instead of assaulting that piece too.

David Cook’s “Eleanor Rigby” – no doubt slightly flavored by the version by Thrice – was inspiring. Much like his masterful redux of Lionel Ritchie’s “Hello,” it was a mostly fresh and experimental take on a song, done in a different light. Likewise, Chikezie’s interesting take on “She’s a Women” was a blast, and really let him shine as an artist.

Elsewhere in the crowd, Carly Smithson showed again that she really can sing like Ann Wilson with her caffeine-infused version of “Come Together” and Syesha Mercado gave us an uneventful performance of “Got To Get You Into My Life” that committed no crime other than being forgettable. Meanwhile, Jason Castro’s understated “I Feel Fine” was solid enough to remind us it’s a great song, but not astound.

What do we see? Someone who tries to stylize a Beatles song as is will never do it justice. It’s either you add your own layer or it flops, because no artisrt will ever do it better than the Beatles, if only because the Beatles version is the definitive version stuck in everyone’s head. Doing a Beatles song as they did it with only minor variation will never bring you success. In the case of Malubay, it led to a dreary take of a great song. In the case of Hernandez, it led to his ouster. But with Cook and Chikezie, the rearrangements led to universal praise.

Covering the Beatles is one of those operations that can go either way. A re-envisioning of a song is often rewarded (D. Cook), but not always (K.L. Cook). A simple recreation can be successful (Castro, Smithson) or sleep-inducing (Malubay, Mercado).

No doubt that a live concert is a great place to recreate some Beatles magic – in front of fans and crowds. But when it comes to impressing on a mass scale, your best bet is to leave Beatles songs in someone else’s head – I promise, they’re almost always better there than your version will be.

Some Thoughts on LOST

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Is it possible that Widmore is the developer of a large scale weapon (the black smoke) and that Benjamin Linus is not the enemy we all have envisioned, but rather, a wary do-gooder hippie type afraid that Widmore will destroy the island in the process? Could Ben be protecting the island? Is it possible that his secrecy is because he knows that anyone, anywhere, under any circumstance, could be a Widmore spy?

If Ben knew and understood the evil of Widmore, he might not trust ANY of the Losties. In fact, if this were the case, imagine the big reveal when we find out that one of our own is, and always has been, a Widmore spy! What if it were revealed that Bernard or Juliet or Sawyer was undercover the whole time? Better yet – Sun’s father has worked with Widmore, Jin works for him… could Jin be the one?

Ben seems to have some evil ways, but if he knew that someone intended to purge the island to resume development of the greatest weapon the world has ever known, he might be suspicious of everyone – even in his own camp before the crash of 815.

Here are some random mysteries that need further explanation: the 4 toed statue, Richard Alpert not aging, the Hostiles pre-Dharma, “The List,” Jacob, Walt, the Dharma project and all of its research, The Black Rock and why Widmore wanted it, who Alvar Hanso is, who Tovard Hanso is, who Magnus Hanso is, their connection to the island, how Lenny (the guy who shared the numbers with Hurley) got off the island how Libby factored into everyone’s life, why Kate says Aaron is her son, and about 200 others.

We’ve got a long way to go, but slowly, things are beginning to unravel.

Reviewing TV

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So the Writers Guild is on strike, and scripted TV has a definite drop dead point. All of your favorite shows are just burning off their remaining episodes and then: nuttin’. Reality TV, game shows, and good, old fashioned reruns.

So, I’ve started cutting back on some TV. First to go: Las Vegas. Las Vegas had a good run a few years ago, but now it’s just trash. The scripts suck, the interaction is infantile, the characters are flat and pointless and often annoying, and the premise is so fatally flawed it’s laughable. Also, I wish somebody would shoot Delinda already, she’s the most annoying character on TV. So Las Vegas got the boot from our DVR.

Next is Grey’s Anatomy. Admittedly, this one is primarily due to my wife – I would have dropped this show mid-way through season 2 if it wasn’t for her. In the meantime, the show is absolutely horrible. Meredith is the whiniest, second-most annoying character on television, and needs a good slap in the face. George is lame, and Izzie is utterly annoying ever since the “I ate an entire tub of butter” speech from last season. Christina is cold and uninteresting, the Chief is one dimensional, Callie is a mess. In fact, the only characters I don’t absolutely despise are Sloan and Bailey, but they are pretty much relegated to minor side-roles.

By all accounts, everything about Prison Break should disqualify is from my like-list. It’s got plot holes so big you could walk in, dance a jig, have a drink, smoke a cigarette, and walk out with no one noticing. The entire premise is silly and should never have lasted longer than one season, if that. And yet, I’m addicted. Despite the fact that a company who knows no limit on spending, rather than simply buying a man out of a corrupt prison with totally corrupt guards in a foreign country, would rather find a wily fugitive, track him down, put him into said prison, let him devise an escape plan in 4 days and pray he gets your man out. Did they not realize it took Michaels many months, along with what surely was several thousand dollars in tattoos, to break out of Fox River? But alas, I love it. Even though it’s got plot twists for the sole sake of screwing with the viewers, I dig it.

Heroes was losing it until recently and the House staff shakeup is getting a little tiring. In my opinion, the best show I now watch is Criminal Minds on Wednesday nights. It’s not even close to my favorite. I prefer The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Howard Stern weekly sneak peek on Mojo… hmmm…. all shows that are primarily improv!

Heroes: It All Makes Sense!

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Ok, so the first 8 episodes of Heroes were mostly a letdown, but — oh boy! – did tonight’s episode, entitled “Four Months Ago” make up for it! It explained everything, perhaps a little too late, but actually had a good, solid, believable explanation for things.

Peter’s “amnesia?” This “Elle” character? Nathan and the burn-faced dude? Niki and her crazy antics? The “twins”? Everything — explained!

Tim Kring, well done. Now – please!! – keep it up.

Heroes’ Sophomore Slump

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I’m not the only one wondering where the heck the excitement is with the TV show Heroes. Entertainment Weekly‘s TV Watch has been tearing it up lately. They directed me towards a “Heroes” feature article that was recently posted. Last season, I was vocal about where “Heroes” succeeded and failed. This year, of course, is no different.

Heroes, where it was cool last year, is just dull this year. We have several storylines, but none are advancing with any meaningful devices. Let’s examine:

* Mohinder is working with HRG to infiltrate the company. He gives them Molly, and they… uh… lie her down in a bed.

* Nicki is working with the company because… uh… I have no idea. They want to help her, or something, but I don’t know what they’ve done other than make her a bit of a bodyguard.

* The “twins” are the most hated new characters – the Paulo and Nicky of “Heroes,” I think – but I find the whole power between them kind of interesting. Too bad their “coming to America” plotline has gone on about 4 weeks too long.

* Sylar lost his power for unknown reasons we’ll likely never be told, but is still so ridiculously and obviously evil its comical.

* Micah is still a complete tool who is way too positive for a 12 year old and is still using his powers for… nothing in particular — hacking pay-per-view and stuff.

* Monica has a “photographic muscle memory ,” and one of the first things she does is pick up from supporting her family and go to New York to “train,” no doubt leaving her family hungry.

* Peter is the least convincing of all. I know if I had amnesia and woke up and found my entire life in a box, I’d probably ditch my whole life for a 50% cute chick and not bother Googling my name. That way I would never have to find out that my brother is a New York state senator. Also, I wouldn’t suspect there’s an interesting back story with the FIRE THAT SHOOTS FROM MY HANDS.

* Matt Parkman is professionally annoying and is creepily attached to a little girl he’s known for 36 seconds.

* Nathan Petrelli is a drunkard; apparently, senators don’t do publicity and no one recognizes him.

* Claire is kinda hot and actually has the most convincing storyline, along with her a-hole friend West, who behaves more like a real person than anuone else in the entire show.

* HRG has suddenly decided the best way to hide is to trek around the world and murder his ex-mentor in order to find the paintings that show his demise. When he finds them, he can’t make heads or tails of them.

* Someone sent Veronica Mars after Peter, but she didn’t find him in the first 10 seconds, so they recalled her. Haven’t seen her since.

* Who can forget Hiro, who has the silliest story of all. He goes back in time and finds a nasty drunkard theif, who, despite the fact that he’s known a Japanese girl for about a day, goes to the enemy when Hiro kisses her. Lame, get Hiro back to present day. Anyway, if I could bend time, even though I went back to ancient Japan, wouldn’t you just return to the present when you finally do come back so there is no “gap” when you’re missing??

Heroes had better coalesce quickly, because it’s currently just wandering aimlessly. Once your story is just filling time, which I think this one is, you’ve losing people’s interests. The fact is that this story is creeping along at a snail’s pace in order to fill a season. Viewers don’t appreciate that.