On The Air

It’s that time again, upfronts season. This week is when the big TV networks all announce their fall schedules, including which new pilots are in and which failed shows from last year are out. And while the upfronts are supposed to be geared just towards advertisers, over the last decade, with the rise of the internet, it’s really turned into a huge press day for letting the viewers know which new shows will be coming out this September.

Today was NBC’s day to make their announcements. And I’m not going to cover everything, since you can find full coverage in a hundred other places, including TV Squad and Zap2It. But here are some of the things that jump out at me:

Scrubs had been on the bubble over the last few weeks, with news coming out that it was renewed, or it was cancelled, or NBC was cancelling it and it would move to ABC, to a hundred other possibilities. But today it’s official that the show is staying on NBC, Thusday nights, although this will almost surely be the last season. For a show that has ridden under the radar with middling ratings for its entire life, seven seasons is damn good. Glad to see it’s back.

Studio 60 is cancelled. Officially. Which isn’t a huge surprise since it got trememdously low ratings and was jerked all around the schedule this spring. At least it wasn’t cancelled and pulled early in the season, like so many other unlucky shows were, but it certainly wasn’t treated well. It’s coming back on May 24th to finish out the rest of the season, probably another six episodes. And that’s a courtesy many cancelled shows don’t get, so I guess we should be happy.

Also cancelled: a whole raft of midseason shows that just didn’t catch on. This was a really weak midseason, for all the networks but NBC in particular. The Black Donnellys, Andy Barker, P.I., Raines. Didn’t watch ‘em, don’t care.

Heroes is back, of course. It’s one of the biggest hits NBC has right now. And next year they’re making six extra episodes, called “Heroes: Origins”, that will be outside the season’s main story arc and each introduce one new character. Kind of a strange idea, and we’ll have to see how it plays out. There’s nothing wrong with more Heroes.

New shows: All dramas and dramadies this year for NBC. And they’re trying to cash in on the whole sci-fi/superheroes thing a little bit, which might backfire on them. Bionic Woman is an update of the old show from the 70s, Journeyman is about a guy who travels through time changing lives, and Chuck is an ordinary guy who gets a bionic brain implant. Can’t say any of those jump out at me, but I’ll probably give the first episodes a try, at least.

The Apprentice is not on the schedule at all, but that doesn’t mean it’s dead. It just means they still have a Trump headache and don’t want to think about him for a while. Can’t say I blame them.

Tomorrow? ABC’s new shows.

Entertainment Weekly, as part of their big cover story on Heroes, has put together a photo gallery of what the stars of the show did previously in their careers. Since most of them were unknowns and character actors, there are a lot of shots of them lurking in the background while Zach Braff or Tom Cruise get all the limelight. Go check it out.

So why have I stopped writing my Amazing Race recaps? Well, a lot of reasons, but the big one is the show just stopped being fun. Read on.

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I know I spend a lot of time talking about the bad stuff that’s on TV. Charla and Mirna, Sanjaya, Donald Trump. And it’s not very often that I bring up the good stuff, of which there is a lot. And one of the best, right now, is Blake Lewis.

Blake is probably the best thing that has ever happened on or to American Idol. Just like Sanjaya was kind of a living embodiment of everything that is wretched and cynical about the show, Blake is kind of like the shining light, the hope, the optimism. Blake is what American Idol should be, but isn’t. Twelve people who are really gifted musicians and performers getting together to shape the future of pop music. Instead of being all about glory notes and spotlights, and crying teenage girls, Blake is all about invention. When Blake’s really at his best, like he was last night, he goes beyond “make it your own” and actually makes you forget the original version. It’s not just a karaoke version, or a cabaret performance, it’s a true cover, something that is in seriously short supply on this show.

Now, the big question on my mind is how Blake slipped past the process to make it this far. Because just like the producers were very much pissed off about Sanjaya becoming popular, there has to be a part of them that hates what Blake is doing and the cracks he’s exposing every time he gets up on stage. I mean, last night everybody was talking about what a “risk” he was taking, and how he was “rolling the dice”. But the thing is, what Blake did last night is something we should be seeing every week on this show, new frontiers being broken left and right. And for them to make such a big deal out of what he did reveals the truth: American Idol is a karaoke bar, and they’re not really looking for somebody to try anything new or break any barriers. The judges let him off easy last night, which was actually kind of a surprise. I was expecting their reaction to be closer to the reception he got when he reimagined “Keep Me Hanging On.”

So how do you solve a problem like Blake? I think that next year, when they’re sitting down to pick out the Final 24 for American Idol 7, they’re first of all going to give serious thought to the Sanjaya Issue, and maybe not cast so many people that openly suck. But they might also look at the Blake Issue, and not bring anyone on board who’s too exotic, too original, who strays too far away from the karaoke zone where they want everybody to be. And that’s America’s loss, because now that we’ve seen Blake we’ve seen what this show can really be, and to settle for anything less from now on just isn’t going to sit right.

There were two possible outcomes to this season of The Apprentice: the safe, predictable one that was telegraphed from about twelve weeks ago, and the completely nutzoid balls-out awesome one. The awesome one would have involved Donald Trump professing his love for Frankie Suits on national television, and sending the other seventeen people to go live homeless on the streets of LA for one year. Frankie would have been crowned Perpetual Apprentice For All Time, and all the other previous Apprentices in the audience would have been fired too. And then, while tossing $10,000 bills into the audience, Trump would have realized that he and Frankie Suits are long-lost brothers. And not only that, but they also share the same birthmark on their butt cheek. It is discovered that these two birthmarks, when placed next to each other, are actually two halves of the map to the ancient lost treasure of the Aztecs. They set out on a whirlwind adventure around the world to hunt down the treasure, Trump is the stuffy billionaire who is never seen without his solid gold suitcase. Frank is the scruffy New Yorker who is able to talk his way out of any situation they get into. And is especially valuable when they get arrested in Morocco! At first they don’t get along, but as they progress through their fifteen-week search around the globe for the missing treasure, they come to realize how much they really need each other, and they learn the true meaning of friendship. Donald Trump realizes what is really important in the universe, and gives away all his money to an African orphanage. Frankie finally hits puberty and is made into a real boy. And together they teach all of America the value of love, teamwork and never giving up. When they find the treasure at the end, it’s not gold, and it’s not jewels. Instead they find out that what they were searching for was inside of them all along.

The boring, predictable ending is for Stefani to be made The Apprentice, because it was evident back in February that she was the only competent one out of the whole bunch of these jokers. I’ll let you guess which ending we actually saw tonight.

See what you’ve done, America? You made Sanjaya cry.

You bastards.

The new reality show from Mark Burnett is Pirate Master. It’s Survivor on the high seas. It looks balls-out awesome, but we have to wait until the end of next month to find out. TV Guide has a first look:

The wannabe brigands dress in period costumes, eat such yummy authentic food as gruel - the officers get better rations - and are ruled over by an elected captain who assigns roles to the crew members and can be overthrown if he doesn’t treat his crew well. Mutiny, anyone? Each week at “Pirate’s Court” - which are, according to Burnett, modeled after actual tribunals - a player is cast off the ship and set adrift on a raft. “If you can’t run with the crew, if you can’t swim or row or navigate, you’re a liability.”

This is either going to be the next Survivor or the next Treasure Hunters. I’m betting on the former. Mark Burnett is a freaking genius.

You know, my wife has hit on the best way to watch American Idol. Just keep your finger on the TiVo’s Fast Forward button at all times, and don’t be afraid to use it. Like when Martina McSomebody goes on and on about anything having to do with country music? [Beep boop]. If you don’t like the first three bars of a song? [Beep boop]. Thursday’s show is 85% filler? [Beep boop] You get through the whole show in about 20 minutes this way, and it really makes things go smoother.

I’ve also found that when my wife and I talk about the show we don’t use anybody’s real name. Everyone has a nickname, and that’s all we use when we talk. Like Blake’s nickname is “Beatbox”. LaKisha, Melinda and Jordin have all been lumped together as “The Supremes”. Haley’s nickname was “Boobie Girl” and Chris Sligh was “Jack Osbourne”. Chris Richardson is “Justin Timberlake” (once you’ve been put in the box, you can’t get out), and Phil of course is “Gollum”. Sanjaya’s nickname, oddly enough, is “Sanjaya”. He’s become such an iconic character in popular culture that it’s like he’s transcended reality, and now every time he appears on stage he seems to be doing an impersonation of himself. Like when you see George Bush Sr you think of Dana Carvey. The archetype of “Sanjaya” is actually ages-old, going back as long as there’s been popular music. Style over talent. The hair. The eyes. The swooning girls. Frankie Avalon and the Monkees. Fucking Britney Spears. This is nothing new, and this is the kind of thing American Idol has been banking on for six years now. This is the reason I always say American Idol is not a singing competition, because there are about one hundred and fifty different things that motivate people to vote, and if you listed them all and ranked them you’d find “voice” very far down the list. Obviously voice counts for something, because really what else does LaKisha have going for her? She’s 1-for-149. But Sanjaya is just the opposite, he’s 149-for-1, and it’s what’s keeping him in this thing. It’s what’s kept American Idol on the air for so long. It’s what’s kept record executives in business for so long. It’s been going on for longer than any of us have been alive, this indefinable thing, and now, after so many years, now we can finally put a name to it. And that name is “Sanjaya”. That’s why it’s so mind-bending when the judges diss Sanjaya, because by doing this they’re dissing the entire show, they’re dissing the last six years of their lives, they’re dissing the very thing that keeps them relevant. They’ve invented a popularity contest disguised as a singing contest, and now they want to disavow that it is a popularity contest at all. Maybe it’s all an act. Maybe it’s part of the joke. Maybe it’s part of their characters. Maybe Simon Cowell is really tongue-kissing Sanjaya backstage because he realizes that Sanjaya’s the best thing to ever happen to the show. Whatever. I just can’t understand how people say that Sanjaya is ruining American Idol when Sanjaya is American Idol. Like, brought to life. The purest essence of the show, collected, encapsulated, breathed into a living vessel, and wrapped up in a shiny do-rag. Motherfucker’s going to be president someday.

And so that’s why Sanjaya’s nickname is “Sanjaya”. Because it’s not a name, it’s a noun. It’s a thing.

And how about the show itself? It was country night, and my wife had the remote, so there was a lot of [Beep boop] going on. She fast-forwarded LaKisha before she even started singing, so I didn’t find out until today that she sang that hateful, hateful Carrie Underwood song about Jesus saving you from black ice. We really dodged a bullet there. Thank you, TiVo. Phil, I have to say, was the best of the night. And Dial Idol agrees with me, so maybe he finally climbed out of the bottom. And Blake was surprisingly boring, which he usually isn’t. He’s usually spot on with his song choices. But he gets massive points for taking a country song and making it sound not at all country. It’s called “making it your own,” something that Blake does every week, and alternately gets lauded or panned for. I still think that Blake is the only one of the bunch that I could legitimately imagine hearing on the radio, which is the same thing I said about Chris Daughtry last year. And look, he’s the only one I ever have heard on the radio. So things will probably be looking rosy for Blake, even if he doesn’t win.

And he’s not going to win, because Sanjaya is. Come on, Sanjaya is the perfect embodiment of everything American Idol is and stands for. He’s the perfect contestant, how can he not win? Dial Idol has him in last place this week, though, so maybe folks are starting to pay attention to his voice and ignoring those other 149 things. Could be trouble tonight. Stay tuned.

I’m back, and I’m trying to catch up on all the shows I missed while I was gone. Some of them I managed to watch from the hotel while I was on vacation. I got to see Sanjaya butchering another song on American Idol, and I also got the see the horrible injustice of Gina being sent home before Haley. That does not compute in my world, but I guess if you sing a boring ballad you go away. Up tempo songs, people! I keep telling you!

On Survivor first it was a very good week, with Lisi getting booted, but then it was a bad week with Michelle going next. I’m sending all my thought waves for Earl and Yau Man to be in the final two, but it’s getting harder to see it happen.

On The Apprentice I got to witness the impossible, Frank making the final four! Over Heidi! You know, Frank is my Sanjaya. Everything about him is repugnant, and he’s a five-year old trapped in an old guy body, but I so desperately want him to win and I don’t even know why. And to watch Arrow triumph over Kinetic? It’s so wrong but it feels so right. These are not the people I should be rooting for, but I find myself doing it week after week. I’m pulling for my boy Frank to win it all.

But on The Amazing Race, quite the opposite has been happening. The two shows while I was away saw the elimination of both the Guidos and Uchenna and Joyce, leaving us with a very grim final four indeed. Danny and Oswald are the only shining lights left, and I’ve wanted them to win from the beginning, so I’m still rooting for them to pull through. But I was hoping that as we got near the end there would be two or three other teams that I could also root for, kind of as a fallback in case the unthinkable happens. But right now I just want all six of the other contestants to be eaten by sharks. Seriously. They cast some dud teams for this All-Stars, and somehow most of them are still around at the end.

Oh, and there’s so much more on my TiVo that’s still crying out to be watched. House. Scrubs. How I Met Your Mother. Ugly Betty. There are only so many hours in the day, people.

For the next two weeks I’ll be watching TV from hotel rooms and not writing about it. Should be nice.

See you in mid April!