TVSquad

1. The Closer (TNT)
2. The Fantasia Barrino Story - 9pm (Lifetime)
3. Nextel Cup - Michigan (TNT)
4. NFL Pre-Season - Raiders vs. Vikings (ESPN)
5. WWE Monday Night RAW - 10pm (USA)
6. Monk (USA)
7. The Fantasia Barrino Story - 8pm (Lifetime)
8. WWE Monday Night RAW - 9pm (USA)
9. Psych (USA)
10. MLB - Yankees vs. Red Sox (ESPN)

• The new fall season begins tonight! At 8, FOX has the season premiere of Prison Break, followed by the series premiere of Vanished.
• ABC Family has a new Kyle XY at 8.
• ESPN has pre-season football at 8, the Saints vs. the Cowbosy, while ESPN2 has more coverage of The Little League World Series.
• At 9, NBC has the season finale of Treasure Hunters.
• Lifetime has the TV movie The Fantasia Barrino Story: Life Is Not A Fairy Tale at 9. That seems like a bad title, since her hard-life-turning-out-great-by-winning-American Idol-and-having-a-movie-made story seems exactly like a fairy tale.
• There's a new episode of The Closer at 9 on TNT, followed by a new Saved.
• HGTV has the special Life After Katrina, also at 9.
• HBO has Spike Lee's When The Levees Broke at 9.
• At 10, The Travel Channel has Bourdain In Beirut, which chronicles chef/writer Anthony Bourdain's time in the city.
• Showtime has two new episodes of Weeds at 10.
• BBC America has a new Life On Mars at 10.
• Also at 10: TLC has a new episode of American Chopper.

We reported last week that the Lifetime biopic on American Idol contestant Fantasia Barrino shows that the producers of the hit reality show actually pushed Barrino to quit the show after news of the baby she had as a teen and her educational background came out. Now a producer of the show calls the allegation "absolutely and totally untrue."

Ken Warwick tells the NY Post that they knew all about Fantasia's background from the very first day she was on the show, and they never asked her to quit. He calls it a "complete fabrication."

It's interesting because not only is this scene in the movie, it's the opening scene, and serves as a jumping off point for the rest of the movie and is shown again at the end, to frame the pic. It's also interesting because the movie uses actual footage from the show, including her audition, her performances, and the reactions of Simon, Paula, and Randy. So Idol must have OK'd the film.

Hmmm...

So did a lot of people. Ba-DAH-boom! Thank you very much, I'm here all week! Try the veal!

Seriously though, American Idol producers tried to force Fantasia Barrino to quit the show, and this was after she made it to the finals. Seems that Idol was concerned that revelations that Barrino had a child in her early teens and the fact that she was a high school dropout that had literacy problems. But Fantasia wouldn't quit, and the rest is history.

I'm surprised a show like American Idol would want to force out someone who was a high school drop out, because it sounds like the perfect "rags to riches, come back against all odds" type of story they'd eat up. The other part, having a child as an unwed mother, I guess is more understandable (Idol seems to have a problem with "morals" and has kicked off several contestants), though I don't think that should disqualify anyone either. Besides, didn't they know about all this stuff before she made it to the finals?

The Grammys airs tonight, but I won't be watching it. I have an annual ritual where instead of watching the awards show I turn off all the lights, stand in a box of broken glass, and spray Windex into my eyes for two hours. As much as I'd love to watch the music industry congratulate itself, this just seems like a better use of my time. However, there is something interesting about tonight's telecast, which is that if either Kelly Clarkson or Fantasia Barrino wins, it will be the first time a made-by-TV performer will have won the coveted award.

What does this mean, exactly? Well, the Mercury News thinks this marks a new era where TV has a greater influence on music. As one promoter states, "TV has created an entirely new audience, beyond the normal concert goers."

I don't think the "new audience" that has formed around American Idol could really be described as "music fans." I'm not making a blanket statement about all AI viewers, I'm saying that the show, despite what it claims to be, doesn't really cater to real music fans. It's about drama and record deals, and while the talent involved may be good (or great, or amazing) singers in their own right, they're merely part of the juggernaut. Television didn't just make people like Clay Aiken popular, it also made William Hung popular, too. It wasn't until some distance was put between Idol and the likes of Clarkson and Aiken that they began to garner a fanbase that wasn't just made up of people wondering what barbed witticism Simon Cowell was going to toss out next. American Idol has been a springboard for many, but ironically, it's those artists who have forged an identity separate from the show that have had the most staying power. Rather than American Idol ushering in some new era of music, I see it becoming less and less relevant.