Guilty Pleasures

It's summer and television presents a whole new range of programming this time of year. Since I own two two-tuner Tivo's I can pretty much watch any show I could possibly ever want to watch at any given time.

For some reason I almost enjoy summer TV programming better than the regular season, which somehow seems to take a greater commitment of time and energy.

For example, there is a show on TV right now called 'America's Got Talent' which goes to some effort to demonstrate that, in fact, America doesn't have a lot of talent if you skew your selection criteria enough. This show is broadcast for an hour and a half each week. Of that 90 minutes the vast bulk of the time is devoted to commercials, judges commentary, or profile pieces. Now, personally, I am only interested if someone *actually* has talent and I don't need a judge to tell me whether they do or not, I can make that assessment for myself.

In general I spend no more than ten to a maximum of fifteen minutes to watch this 90 minute program; and I assure you I don't feel like I'm missing a single thing. Nevertheless, by the time they get to the end of the season they actually have found a couple of people who really do have talent and I give up a brief period of time to watch their act.

I think this is mostly what I like about Summer programming is that it tends to be saturated with reality-TV which is often comprised of talent competitions. After watching the broadcast networks trot our new drama after new drama and new sitcom after new sitcom every year to great fanfare only to watch the vast bulk of them to fail miserably I have to wonder, why bother?

When I was quite young variety programs and talent shows were the staple of TV. I'm not sure when sitcoms and dramas began to supplant them, but I don't think it was a big improvement.

I like to hear great singers sing, watch great dancers dance, hear great comedians make me laugh, and even enjoy watching specialty acts do something special. I never get tired of watching talented people do creative things. So, please, keep bringing on the reality programs and other talent competitions, both my Tivo and I are prepared.

My favorite talent show is 'So You Think You Can Dance'. The level of talent that has come through this program is simply mind boggling. And, most importantly, is that it is showcasing dance to a wide audience that would not normally ever consider going to a Broadway show, ballet, modern dance, or dance theatre. This program is really enlightening the general public as to just how moving this art form can be all by itself. I have been a big fan of dance for many years and I am thrilled that this talent competition is spreading this incredibly moving art form to a much wider audience.

What has been particularly significant this season is how much the program is showcasing the choreographers in addition to the dancers themselves.

In fact, I'm kind of thinking they should consider a spin-off show titled 'So You Think You Can Choreograph'. This version of the program would bring back the best and favorite dancers from the previous seasons of the original show, howver, they would not be voted off. Instead, each week, they would perform dances by a variety of choreographers who would be eliminated each episode until only the most brilliant and creative choreographer remained.

Besides talent shows I engage in even more banal guilty pleasures. I am ashamed to admit that I have watched the television show 'Big Brother' almost every season it has been on. I'm not quite certain there is a bigger guilty pleasure possible than watching this idiotic program. Even from the first season it was compared to watching hamsters in a cage and, quite frankly, that really seems to be the primary fascination.

In fact, I beg the producers of the show to, at least one season, set a single important competition around who can run on a giant human sized hamster wheel for the longest to win the 'Head of Household'. Oh yeah, and how about another competition that requires them to wear hamster outfits for a week. The level of degradation and humiliation these caged humans allow themselves to be subjected to is so surreal that I cannot help watching each episode to see how my little creatures have behaved once poked by the producers of the show with their sharp and shiny sticks.

Another guilty pleasure in the pantheon of reality-talent competitions in 'American Idol'. I have watched it every year since it first came out and my interest level has gradually waned. I still watch it, and will still continue to watch it, but there has always been something about it that felt really quite phony.

Each year the show spends more and more episodes showcasing the audition rounds and in these there has always been something that felt extremely wrong. Year in and year out these audition episodes showcase one horrible singer after another. They are paraded in front of the judges to such an extent that the entire thing seems like a hopeless and pathetic joke. During an hour long audition episode you might see a couple of minutes of a few decent singers but the bulk of the show is devoted to the mentally retarded, social misfits, publicity seekers, and just plain idiots.

All the time the judges will cry in anguish about how there is 'no talent' in Dallas, Atlanta, Seattle, etc. etc. etc. Something about all of this just didn't make sense to me. You see, I have been to a Karaoke bar before and, let me assure you, that there are many singers in the United States who can sing 'pretty good' if not downright great. The average person can sing 'average'; not so earsplittingly awful that you want to run screaming from the room.

This has always bugged me and I have recently received some direct confirmation of my suspicions. A friend of mine is an incredible singer. She goes to Karaoke bars and regularly blows away anyone else who goes on the stage. Objectively she sings as good as anyone who has ever managed to get past the first round of American Idol auditions. Recently she tried out for American Idol and confirmed what I had already suspected. Some 20,000 to 30,000 people show up. Many of them are incredible singers. Obviously not all, but let's say at least one in twenty or one in thirty. That's roughly a 1,000 incredible singers at each audition. However, watching the TV show, you would be convinced that no person from that audition could hold a note or carry a tune. This is simply not the case!

The producers of the show are *NOT LOOKING FOR GREAT SINGERS*! They are looking for great personalities that make good TV. And, they are especially looking for the delusional people who sing horribly bad but, somehow, have manged to convince them self that they sing well. Many of these individuals are clearly mentally handicapped or suffer from severe emotional problems. This is the group of people they work hard to get on the show. Meanwhile, of the 1,000 or more truly fantastic singers it boils down to who they think might make good TV and amounts to little more than a random roll of the dice.

I pretty much knew this already but I was glad to have it confirmed by a friend who went to the auditions (twice) who I happen to know for a fact can sing as good as anyone who has ever been on the show past the first round.

The summer TV season is quickly wrapping up and soon I will shift my focus onto mainstream entertainment; shows like '30 Rock', 'The Office', 'Lost', and others. But, for now, I bid a fond farewell to the summer fare I have been entertained by these past couple of months.