Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
Questionable talent. Exploitative format. It's one of several shows making this the ''Summer of Stupid.''
By ERIC DEGGANS, Times TV Critic
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 3, 2002
Why do I hate American Idol?
Not just because it's a glorified karaoke contest -- a gussied-up, lip-synching carnival that passes off children who can warble an Elton John tune as artists worthy of a recording contract.
And not just because it has plumbed new depths of product placement commercialism, treating viewers to sappy Coca-Cola Moments while sticking large cups with the soda giant's logo in front of the show's panel of "judges" -- just in case you missed the subtle shots of contestants guzzling the soft drink weeks before.
No, my revulsion springs from the realization that this talent show is the embodiment of what has gone wrong with network TV's summertime programming in recent years. Executives cynically chase young eyeballs with exploitative spectacles that slowly erode the quality of broadcast television.
"Singing is the one talent everybody thinks they have," chuckled Fox's head of alternative programing, Mike Darnell -- the man who brought you Temptation Island and Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? -- when I met him in California months ago. "And people know a lot of people who think they can sing but really can't. Most television is taking an old genre and making it new. We just took a talent show and brought new life to it."
But the formula Darnell copied from the British hit Pop Idol is willfully, horribly disingenuous, hyping inexperienced vocalists who can barely sing other people's songs in a contrived contest where, oddly, the most talented competitor isn't chosen.
That title probably should have gone to Tamyra Gray, who was eliminated two weeks ago after receiving the fewest votes, because either computer nerd "power dialers" logged mountains of votes for others through the Internet or the viewing audience was blithely unsympathetic. (Her lack of surprise, quick willingness to defend the results and equally rapid announcement of a management deal with the show's producers left this professional couch potato wondering if it wasn't staged to add a last-minute twist).
The two finalists left this week, charismatic mop-top Justin Guarini and boring-yet-skilled-vocalist Kelly Clarkson, have survived a field of 30 contestants picked for the show via auditions and helped spawn an American Idol concert tour (a Tampa stop is scheduled Oct. 23), a possible movie, a 2003 edition for Fox and at least two records -- one from the winner and Gray's.
And then there's the three judges. (Can you call somebody a judge if he doesn't even pick the competition's winner?) At this point in the game, they're a useless formality, passing on empty praise to finalists who have emerged as the true stars of the show.
Even acerbic Brit judge Simon Cowell -- an import from Pop Idol who told one aspiring songstress to demand a refund from her vocal teacher -- has sheathed his fangs in recent weeks, perhaps because his bald-faced barbs were quickly eclipsing every other part of the show.
For proof of Cowell's toothless status, note that he allowed finalist Nikki McKibbin last week to sing an entire Stevie Nicks tune -- constantly on the verge of dropping out of key, as usual -- with no insult forthcoming. It felt uncomfortably like choking down a box of Cracker Jack with no prize at the end.
Randy "name dropper" Jackson can't get through an evaluation without citing some star he's worked with. (Curiously, he never mentions the days when he had a flattop haircut, wore parachute pants and played bass in Journey. Really). And it's probably been said before, but the idea of Paula Abdul judging someone else's singing is kind of like Phyllis Diller handing out hairstyling tips; check out the reed-thin vocals on Abdul's '80s hit Straight Up for verification.
Who knows why Fox thought it needed two hosts for this travesty, but Ryan Seacrest and Brian Dunkleman simply prove that hiring two twits to read cue cards gives you twice the banality in half the time.
But all this is mostly annoyance. Where American Idol crosses into truly harmful territory is in its structure.
Like all summertime reality shows, Idol is painfully focused on young audiences, which means two things: drastically simplified content and shocking, often degrading twists.
If American Idol feels like a demonically oversized version of your high school variety show tryouts, then CBS' Big Brother recalls your first year in the college dorms with a roommate you couldn't stand, and NBC's Meet My Folks channels the first time you had to meet a date's judgmental parents.
For young viewers, it's a slate of summer shows that echo the emerging rhythms of their lives. But for those of us who have been around the block a time or two, it can feel like cruising down a road you've walked many times before.
Already, critics are calling the past few months of programming the "Summer of Stupid" for the way boneheaded fare Idol, Dog Eat Dog, Fear Factor, The Rerun Show, The Anna Nicole Show and Meet My Folks has outrated classy, though conventional, documentary shows ICU, State vs. and Houston Medical (all found, sadly enough, on fourth-place ABC, which isn't likely to repeat its mistake next year).
Network honchos love shows such as American Idol and Dog Eat Dog for a different reason: They help hype the fall season.
Any network's first line of promotion is its airwaves. So when young, movie-going, record-buying, Gatorade-guzzling viewers are glued to Justin Guarini's stirring rendition of Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me, they also get a heaping dose of promos for Fox's Fast and the Furious ripoff, Fastlane, and Angel-Buffy creator Joss Whedon's vanity sci-fi project, Firefly (don't laugh: NBC entertainment chief Jeff Zucker's success hyping of last fall's shows during Fear Factor and Spy TV sealed his success).
I have no illusions about how horribly unhip this makes me look. In Hollywood, success is the best defense, and American Idol's white-hot ratings (more than 16-million viewers for one show last week) have made it the darling of the TV industry, regardless of its content.
But it's a critic's gig to defend quality and condemn empty hype, even when that hype comes attractively packaged. So as American Idol cruises to its show-stopping finale this week, consider yourself warned: Like a chocolate-covered ant, this show hides its awful qualities beneath a sticky-sweet coating.
Once you bite down and enjoy, you have only yourself to blame for the consequences.
AT A GLANCE: American Idol: The Search for a Superstar airs its finale over two nights, at 9 tonight and over two hours beginning at 8 p.m. Wednesday, on WTVT-Ch. 13.