Posted Sep 4th 2009 1:30AM by Michael Pascua
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, OpEd, Episode Reviews
(S06E03) Early episodes of
Project Runway throw me off. There are too many contestants, and a lot of them get lost in the shuffle. A lot of the designers have five seconds here and there, but the editing team chooses which ones we get to know.
This week was a team challenge where everyone was paired up in a school-yard pick. Who is Irina anyway? The designers had the chance to talk to locals, but the information they gave was useless. If someone didn't know beach wear was influenced by tropical colors, comfort, and functionality, they deserve to lose the challenge.
Continue reading Project Runway: Rumble on the Runway
Posted Sep 3rd 2009 3:41PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Food/Home/DIY, Episode Reviews, Episode Recaps
(S0603) Bacon might be one of America's unhealthiest foods. But as comedian
Jim Gaffigan pointed out in his last special, bacon also holds awesome powers that are far beyond the grasp of mere mortals.
Given enough patience and time, bacon can move mountains, eradicate poverty and help scientists discover a lifelong cure for herpes simplex one.
Bacon's divine power proved itself once again in last night's
Top Chef.
Continue reading Top Chef: Thunderbirds
Posted Aug 31st 2009 3:38PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, OpEd, Casting
Audrina Patridge is the latest "cast" member to leave The Hills, following on the heels of Lauren Conrad and Whitney Port. To this news I ask: Can the rest of the cast leave so they can just cancel the show? We could only be so lucky.
No, reality television's favorite couple of prats, Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt remain. You know, that could explain why everybody else is running from
The Hills. The producers are hoping an injection of Kristin Cavallari, formerly of
Laguna Beach will help. Personally, I'd be thrilled with the addition of some of the fine folks from the MMA to kick Speidi's ass. I'd watch that week after week.
Don't worry about Patridge, though. She says she's leaving
The Hills to focus on that acting career she went to LA for. Which means starring in another reality show for MTV, apparently.
The Audrina Show, produced by
Survivor's Mark Burnett, will hit the airwaves 2010. Can somebody tell me what Burnett is doing attached to this project?
Posted Aug 29th 2009 5:32PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Industry, OpEd, Celebrities, Celebreality
Do you remember the good old days? The innocent times when Lindsay Lohan was an up and coming young movie star. She received critical acclaim for those early roles. She was beautiful and voluptuous (and you know how the kids love that!). Then she got into drugs, drinking, partying, weighing less than 90 pounds, and it all kind of fell apart. Since then, she's cleaned up her act a bit.
Which is great, Lindsay. But
Lindsay Lohan in a reality show? You do know what kind of celebrities appear in realty shows? Do you think Whitney Houston and Britney Spears were at the heights of their careers when they did their amazing stints in reality television?
Speaking of Brit-Brit, LiLo is working with her manager on the project. Hopefully not the same guy that helped develop
Britney & Kevin: Chaotic. The series is intended to follow Lohan as she attempts to get her career back on track.
Continue reading As Lindsay Lohan ponders a reality show, I remember when she had a career
Posted Aug 29th 2009 3:35PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Game Show, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
ABC's newest stunt game show
Crash Course looks exactly like the kind of show that bloggers and critics watch just so they could put their "Suck Extinguishers" to good use.
And yet 45 minutes of TV viewing later, I'm not even feeling the need to break the protective glass. On the surface, it appears to be just another reality/game show with typical contestants having their ids scared for life for cash and/or prizes and most of it is just that.
And even though it met those stereotypical expectations, I still didn't hate it. Part of me actually kind of (gulp) enjoyed it. Did I just swallow my brains along with my pride?
Continue reading Is it wrong that I don't hate ABC's Crash Course?
Posted Aug 28th 2009 5:05PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Sports, OpEd, Pickups and Renewals
At first, I want to sit here and laugh at the idea that
Fremantle Media thinks they can develop a TV series with parkour. It's just people running and jumping across the landscape. How's that a sport? And most of the coolest videos feature the idiots who think they can do it and fail beautifully.
But I also laughed at the idea of bringing poker to television; it's just people sitting around playing cards. The lesson I've learned is that people will watch anything. And parkour is something. And it can look cool when done right, and even cooler when done wrong.
But Fremantle Media (
American Idol) is hooking up with Motion, Inc. thinking they can develop league competitions and turn it into a global entertainment brand. Which makes me think of wrestling or The X-Games. Hell, parkour would fit in very well there. I don't deny that it takes an incredible athleticism to perform parkour, but I can't see myself sitting down and enjoying a competition for an hour or more. But then again, I can't watch poker either, so it'll probably be as huge as they think.
Posted Aug 28th 2009 3:03PM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Music and Variety, America's Got Talent
An iPhone software developer is trying to turn the "anybody can sing" craze triggered by
American Idol and
America's Got Talent into an online social networking craze.
And, I admit, the more I think about that, the more terrifying it becomes. Take the first couple weeks of
Idol shows with all of the bad auditions and multiply them by the endless fool factor of the Internet.
iSing (created by Island Labs and available in Apple's iTunes store), enables anyone with an iPhone or iPod touch to record a 30-second audition. Singers then publish it and watch for their recording "to climb the charts as their 'fans' vote for (or against) it in this worldwide competition for stardom" (all according to an Island Labs release). You don't win anything but "stardom," should you do well.
Continue reading iSing app brings Idol and America's Got Talent style to iPhone
Posted Aug 28th 2009 1:03PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Industry, Ratings, Celebreality
I paraphrased that title, but you'll see what I mean. And it's damage control more than dissatisfaction with what VH1 has become, considering ratings are higher than ever. Still, after the murder/suicide of one of their reality show participants, something had to be said. So Tom Calderone, the president of VH1, told the
LA Times that the
network doesn't want to be known for infinite spin-offs of their
Flavor of Love and
Surreal Life types of shows. Which means skanks and hos.
Which is exactly what they're known for. Before this
Megan Wants a Millionaire/I Love Money debacle, they had no problem with it. Ratings were up, proving that there are people out there who will tune into all those atrocities to the senses.
Continue reading After Ryan Jenkins mess, VH1's president talks of a different direction
Posted Aug 25th 2009 7:02PM by Michael Pascua
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, OpEd, Dancing With The Stars, So You Think You Can Dance
Louis Van Amstel must be the hot ticket in the reality TV dace circuit. After choreographing several dances this summer on
So You Think You Can Dance, he's back on
Dancing with the Stars.
For season nine of
DWTS, Louis is paired with Kelly Osbourne. It sounds like an odd pairing because Louis is 37 and Kelly is 24. I'd imagine that Kelly had a younger professional like Mark Ballas (23) or Derek Hough (24). Let's assume height and ABC executives were a big factor.
This leaves the question: Which show fits for Louis Van Amstel?
Continue reading Which dancing show is a fit for Louis Van Amstel?
Posted Aug 25th 2009 4:42PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Reality Shows, Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, OpEd, Smallville, Reality-Free, Gossip Girl
The CW certainly seems to have embraced their new goal of pushing the entire network in a very "female" direction. They've scheduled their new fall preview special on Sunday, August 30 at 6:30 PM, smack between a special spotlighting the top ten moments from
The Tyra Banks Show and their red carpet coverage of the night's Daytime Emmy Awards.
That's nestled in a huge bed of estrogen from where I'm sitting. No wonder a show like
Reaper didn't make it if this is the new demographic The CW is seeking. The manliest shows on the network are
Supernatural and
Smallville, and both of those do well with the ladies, certainly better than Sock did. Other than that, it's
Gossip Girl,
90210,
The Vampire Diaries, America's Next Top Model -- how did this happen?
It's almost all teen dramas now, and it's definitely skewing female. They managed to abandon comedies and African-American featured shows in one fell swoop by canceling
Everybody Hates Chris and
The Game, and they dumped the hellishly fun
Reaper. All that's left is pretty people pouting. Is this what America wanted out of our fifth network?
Posted Aug 24th 2009 7:28PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Video, Music and Variety, Celebrities
Answer: probably.
This is video (can't embed it, unfortunately) of
Danyl Johnson's first performance on The X Factor. Simon Cowell actually called it the best first audition he's ever heard in almost nine years of doing judging. Really? The guy is
definitely good, but I think 58% of it is the audience reaction and the background vocals.
[via
TV Tattle]
Posted Aug 24th 2009 10:04AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, OpEd, Episode Reviews
America's Best Dance Crew is three weeks into its new season, and it's still kind of boring. It's gotten so bad, that this week as host Mario Lopez was declaring safe crews, I realized that I'm not recognizing most of them right away.
So You Think You Can Dance had the same problem this summer; nobody dynamic really jumping out for the longest time.
America doesn't seem to know who to vote for either
, because their "safe" crews each week look like they're being drawn out of a hat. Just this week, the bottom two crews by America's vote gave the best two performances of the night by a landslide.
Continue reading America's Best Dance Crew is boring me so far this season
Posted Aug 24th 2009 9:02AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Programming, OpEd, Video
I can't say that I'm the biggest reality TV freak on the planet, but one show I always look forward to is
The Rachel Zoe Project on Bravo. A lot of that fascination is not only because of the teeny-tiny Rachel herself, but also her tortured assistants, Taylor Jacobson and Brad Goreski. These three, along with Rachel's husband, Rodger, make up one of fashion's most lovably dysfunctional families.
Taylor is possibly the most non-people-person ever to appear on a reality show, and the bow-tied Brad is the guy I'd most like to have as a girlfriend. He's upbeat and funny, which is the exact opposite of the broody Taylor. But together, they somehow make it work, as Tim Gunn would say. Or as Rachel might say, they're "a soldier of rising above it all" (OK, she was talking about herself with that comment, but still ... ).
Continue reading The Rachel Zoe Project returns tonight - that's bananas!
Posted Aug 22nd 2009 10:03AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Industry, OpEd, Ratings
In the war between the cable channels, score this week for Lifetime over Bravo. The battle for
Project Runway had been a legal wrangle that delayed Lifetime getting to show the fashion reality series until last Thursday, but when it finally appeared it was a ratings bonanza.
Project Runway was the highest-rated series premiere in Lifetime's history. That's 25 years!
Continue reading Lifetime's Project Runway scores big with viewers
Posted Aug 21st 2009 5:29PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Programming, Celebrities
This was actually a reality show that was already in the works at A&E way before
Michael Jackson died in June. They filmed a one-hour special and they were hoping that a reunion concert with Michael would happen in the last episode.
There's no official word yet, but
sources say A&E is going to do the series after all, and it will focus a lot on how the brothers are coping with Michael's death. Will you watch it?
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