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Starless night
By ERIC DEGGANS, Times TV Critic
© St. Petersburg Times What's the only thing worse than a TV talent show that deliberately insults its contestants? One that does it by accident. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the newest edition of Star Search. Those who found the gumption to sit through the debut episode of CBS's revamped version of Star Search on Wednesday night know what I mean. Mostly because the live show unfolded as a slightly confusing, slightly disorganized enterprise made worse by the producers' gift for picking the most annoying judges available. Obviously inspired by Fox's blockbuster success with American Idol, the network basically updated TV's classic '80s talent show by grafting on elements lifted straight from the competition: two live broadcasts a week; celebrity judges who explain their scores; votes from viewers incorporated into the results; and a knuckleheaded host who can be a bigger distraction than the performers. Still, replacing Tonight Show sidekick Ed McMahon with onetime talk show host Arsenio Hall wasn't the worst move -- even if he did promise a night "like Def Comedy Jam hosted by Trent Lott." Hall was able to drop a whimsical line or two, though his fumbling attempts to explain the show's convoluted rules gave the show an awkward start. Here's how it works: Performers compete in several categories (junior singer, model, comedian and adult singer), then a panel of four judges weighs in with a score from one to five. The public then votes online at CBS.com, and producers multiply the average of all the Web scores by four and add it to the judges' tally (a fact Arsenio didn't bother to explain Wednesday). Winners from Wednesday, tonight and next Wednesday compete in a semifinal contest Jan. 16 that presents $100,000 to each victor. And it's a good thing the public is involved. Because the show's motley crew of judges -- singer Naomi Judd, actor Ben Stein, comic Carol Liefer and singer Chaka Khan -- made some strange choices: picking a kid who rapped a Lil' Bow Wow song over a gifted, 13-year-old classical singer, and rejecting a Miami model whose attitude lit up the screen. (The public's vote corrected both mistakes.) "Laughter is the shortest distance between two people," said Judd in a puzzling aside to one comedy contestant, easily earning the title of TV's corniest judge. "And I feel very close to you right now." Liefer got in the best lines of the night, telling the young hip-hopper, "It's good to meet a rapper whose crib ... is an actual crib." Khan, appearing only on Wednesday as a guest judge, got points for honesty when she admitted to the modeling contestants she had no idea how to evaluate their, um, talents. (Can somebody explain why Ben Stein -- who doesn't model, sing or do standup comedy -- was even allowed in the room?) Worst of all, despite the show's constant references to current stars who once appeared on the old Star Search (Ray Romano, Justin Timberlake and Alanis Morissette, to name a few), none of Wednesday's contestants seemed quite talented enough to surface in showbiz again. It all added up to a limp exercise that almost made you nostalgic for the energy of a good ol', Idol-style Simon Cowell put down. (Imagine how bad it will get tonight, when the guest judge is Jack Osbourne -- another celebrity with no discernible talent.) Any show that can make you yearn for the exploitive, mean, super-commercial vibe of American Idol is truly an achievement -- though surely not the kind of accomplishment the new Star Search producers intended.
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