Something is afoot on "Dancing With the Stars." Is it just me, or were the judges totally playing favorites tonight?
The leggy Shannon Elizabeth delivered a clunky jive (come on, she came to a standstill in several spots), and yet the judges went ga-ga over it, rewarding the actress with a 24. Marlee Matlin pounded the pavement out of her jive, and got a paltry 21. Kristi Yamaguchi turned in a tango that the judges described as "emotionless" and "one-dimensional" yet she nabbed a score of 27. Steve Guttenberg delivered the most boring, wooden tango (Penn Jillette would have been proud), and "the Goot" as he's been nicknamed, got rousing praise and a score of 21. (And what was with that stupid goggles and metal mixing bowl comedy bit of his?) Need I go on?
Surprise of the night? Make that a plural, as in Adam Carolla and Priscilla Presley. Presley's tango was sultry and passionate and she deservedly scored a 26. Adam was just mindboggling, taking on a whole new persona and netting 21 points. Partner Julianne Hough did her best Catherine Zeta-Jones impersonation, donning a brown bob wig circa "Chicago," and a gorgeous print gown.
Mario look exhausted during his tango (a weeklong tour knocked him on his behind) and the darling of last week's show only managed 21 points on the night. Speaking of exhausted, what was with Shannon "kickboxer fanatic" Elizabeth's almost "Marie Osmond Moment" after her jive was done? Oh the drama on the dance floor! Jason Taylor was also off his game, and though partner Edyta Sliwinska recycled (tacky tacky) her silver "Slinky" dress from last season (slightly tailored and cut up to micro-mini), it couldn't help the duo on this night, as they received only 23 points. Latin heartthrob Cristian de la Fuente wrangled a much deserved 25 for his sassy and fun jive.
Which brings us to Marissa Jaret Winokur. Could the judges have been more cruel? She jived her heart out, and made WAY fewer missteps than some of her predecessors and yet the judges ripped into her with wild abandon. The 19 points were totally mean.
Quip of the night: Courtesy of Adam, backstage, who, when asked by the witty Samantha Harris, what it felt like to learn the dance of passion (or some such) from a 19-year-old (Mormon partner Julianne Hough), the comedian replied without skipping a beat: "My grandfather always told me, 'Son, if you want to learn about an Argentinian dance that's about prostitutes, speak to a Mormon.'"
Samantha Harris stupid backstage moment: Oh, so many to choose from, but my personal fave was her question to Marlee and her partner Fabian Sanchez, and I quote: "Are you guys in it to win it?" No, Samantha, they're in it to waste 12 weeks of their lives.
Shameless ABC show plug: The cast of "Eli Stone" was ringside.
Prediction for Tuesday's elimination: It should be Steve Guttenberg, but it will probably be Marissa.
Piers Morgan is hired (or, thank God 'Celebrity Apprentice' is over)
Piers Morgan is hired.
The former British tabloid editor was crowned the winner on NBC’s ‘‘The Celebrity Apprentice,’’ triumphing over Trace Adkins.
The final task on Thursday’s finale was to hold a charity event. Adkins was in charge of taking care of the talent, The Backstreet Boys, who demanded wheatgrass juice backstage. Morgan was responsible for the auction and food.
Adkins sold more tickets, but Morgan — who has been a judge on NBC’s ‘‘America’s Got Talent’’ — raised the most money: $250,000.
‘‘Apprentice’’ host Donald Trump said Morgan ‘‘did an amazing job’’ and showed up his celebrity competitors (who included Gene Simmons and ‘‘Apprentice’’ villain Omarosa).
Trump called Adkins, whose single ‘‘You’re Gonna Miss This’’ has climbed the country charts, a ‘‘special human being. A beautiful guy.’’
Morgan’s charity is the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, which provides help for families of U.S. military personnel who died in the line of duty. Morgan’s brother has served two tours of duty in Iraq, and his brother-in-law has served two tours of duty in Afghanistan.
Penn Jillette lost on ‘‘Dancing With the Stars,’’ so his comedy-and-magic partner Teller lost $5,000.
Teller had placed a bet on Jillette to conquer the sixth season of the popular ABC dance competition. The odds against Jillette were 30-1 so Teller stood to win $150,000.
Teller said he doesn’t regret losing cash during Jillette’s elimination on Tuesday’s results show.
‘‘I have paid that kind of money for ringside seats for famous events, you know, and I think paying five grand to have a prime ringside seat to the dance of the century was a good deal,’’ he said by phone from Las Vegas.
He said his 53-year-old buddy ‘‘danced amazingly. He was perfectly in time, his footwork was amazing. I think the judges just have a blind spot for grace in men with size 14 shoes.’’
The 'Jericho' alternate ending, and its possible new beginning
Fellow "Jericho" fans certainly exploded from the woodwork yesterday when I posted a final word about the canceled CBS drama — but there's one more final, final word...
TV Guide interviewed series producer Carol Barbee, who discusses the alternate ending that was filmed for the finale, just in case it was a season finale and not a series finale. Hawkins apparently was going to sacrifice himself to let Jake escape with the bomb — but not the ultimate sacrifice. If a third season had been greenlighted, we would have returned to find he'd been captured, and the rest of the season would have centered on Jake trying to free him. Either way, Texas got the bomb and the civil war started.
She also speaks optimistically of shopping the series to a cable network. Wait and see.
Comedy Central picks up David Alan Grier, reality spoof
Comedy Central has handed out series pickups to David Alan Grier’s fake magazine show and a reality spoof from the producers of NBC’s ‘‘The Biggest Loser.’’
The news comes on the heels of Comedy’s 2008-09 development slate announcement, which included both projects as well as the series order for the fantasy comedy ‘‘Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire,’’ which debuts in first-quarter 2009.
The working-titled ‘‘David Alan Grier’s Chocolate News,’’ also bowing in the first quarter, will investigate such ‘‘inherently urban pop culture topics’’ as an operation to save black and white conjoined twins, steroid use in Little Leaguers and a rapper’s public service announcement gone awry.
Grier hosts the half-hour show and also executive produces with Robert Morton (Comedy Central’s ‘‘Mind of Mencia’’), Fax Bahr and Adam Small (Fox’s ‘‘Mad TV’’) and Generate’s Peter Aronson and Jordan Levin. The episode order has yet to be determined.
‘‘Reality Bites,’’ also a working title, is a spoof of the reality genre that features comedians in an elimination-style competition where every episode is a self-contained spoof of one of the major reality formats, such as ‘‘Are You Smarter Than a Monkey?’’ ‘‘So You Think You Can Dive!’’ ‘‘Almost American Gladiators’’ and ‘‘The Amazing Disgrace.’’ The winner will end up being the ‘‘last comic standing’’ and win a cash prize.
Comedy has ordered eight half-hour episode of ‘‘Reality Bites,’’ which debuts in the summer.
It's down to Kristy Lee Cook and Jason Castro. Let's see...a cute as a button country music singer who performed "God Bless the U.S.A." and a guy who shares a last name with a certain former Cuban dictator.
Kristy Lee Cook is, of course, safe.
And so is Castro. He could barely join Eze and Mercado in the bottom three before Ryan told him he was safe.
Is is me, or was Naperville's Gina Glocksen (from last season) in the audience tonight?
Kimberley Locke (the third place winner from Season 2) talked about life post-Idol. She put out a couple albums, she owns a restaurant and she went on "Celebrity Fit Club"
She's sang "Fall," a single released in February. It was in the top 25 on the adult contemporary charts.
David Archuleta smiled the entire time while waiting for Ryan to tell him he was safe.
David Cook looked nervous (as of he didn't know if he was safe). We agree with you, Cook. You don't want to come off cocky this early in the competition.
Fox News was apparently wrong when it reported she was with child.
In other news, people liked her performance of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and she's safe this week.
Brooke White likes it both ways (performing The Police's "Every Breath You Take" with the band and without). She's safe.
Chikezie Eze was pointing to the three stools and not the sofa before Ryan Seacrest could even read his name. He was right. Eze is in the bottom three this week.
After we come back from comercial break...more comercials
Another shamless plug for the songs on iTunes. They actually go into the studio and record the entire song instead of the one and a half minutes of it they perform on the show.
Anyone else wondering how much Apple is paying for this?
Things I could be watching instead of the filler before we get to the votes: At the top of the list is the Oscar-winning animated short "Peter & The Wolf" on PBS.
After schilling for entries in their Idol song contest, we get to tonight's group sing Talk about theme park performances (to borrow a criticism from Simon Cowell from last night), these things always come off so cheesy in my book. "Right Back to Where We Started From" is no different.
To the caller who took issue with my comments regarding Kristy Lee Cook last night:
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." -Sinclair Lewis
It should be possible to critique someone's performance of a patriotic song like "God Bless the U.S.A" without being told you are un-American for doing so. In my opinion Kristy has been the weakest performer on the show up until now. She frequently if off-pitch and the country arrangement of "Eight Days a Week" was a disaster. While her song choice of "God Bless the U.S.A." was a shrewd one, I found her performance schmaltzy.
And the greatest thing about this country: I'm entitled to my opinion.
Jake Green (Skeet Ulrich, left) and brother Eric Green (Kenneth Mitchell) weren't strong enough to hold Jericho, the town or the series, together.(CBS)
A Los Angeles Times blogger yesterday attempted to examine the various reasons why "Jericho" — the nuclear-aftermath drama CBS canceled and then brought back for a second try this spring to appease rabid fans — finally imploded and aired its series finale (for good this time, we mean it, really) last night. The writer discusses myriad business issues — the strike, the time slot, network decisions, etc. — but utterly ignores the one thing we too often overlook in these discussions, and the one thing that really matters when it comes to ratings: the story.
This kind of practical analysis is fine for the business pages, but there are artistic elements to the entertainment we can't get into the habit of ignoring. Simply put, the story on this new "season" of "Jericho" was weak.
The show was beloved in its first go-round because, I think, it was a tale of true patriotism and America's core values (and it creeps me out a little to write those phrases, given how they've been so commonly co-opted by the right wing as rhetorical weapons). It had (again, shudder) family values. It was a story of what really matters in people's personal lives; the political stuff was a vehicle for that. But when it came back, the political vehicle was a runaway train. It became just a sub-Tom Clancy political thriller, with a byzantine plot that involved shadowy figures and conspiracies — absent of the real people with real motivations that made the first season so engaging.
Last night's finale sealed things off ably enough — even despite what had become this season's trademark leaps in logic (and, man, travel time between Cheyenne, Wyo., and Jericho, Kan., must be among the best airline service in world history) — and ended things on a broader note of American values (freedom, truth, justice, if anyone remembers those). It was disappointing only for those of us who wished the show would go on.
But that disappointment set in long ago, and I think most fans would admit that the loss of Gerald McRaney (his character was killed at the end of season one) was the real death blow to this show. His character's son, our hero Jake (Skeet Ulrich), couldn't hold the center, especially while splitting the moral high ground with his brother, whose personal flaws overcame his sympathetic qualities too early in the story. And when they killed Bonnie for, apparently, no good reason, well, the humanity had clearly leaked out of the story.
(There's actually a business aspect to how that happened: The show's original writers did not return for this second season. After the show's cancellation, they moved to another new series, and when the show was renewed they were stuck in contracts for that other show and couldn't escape. So the source material in their heads likely was lost.)
So "Jericho" joins the heap of other great series that died prematurely (see "Invasion," "Sports Night," "Wonderfalls," etc. etc.). It's still available on the CBS web site and likely will remain there for a while. Meanwhile, we'll be watching YouTube, hoping the alternate, cliffhanger ending that was filmed (in hopes a third season would be picked up) is eventually leaked. It would be interesting to see in which direction they intended to point the show.
There are rumors, of course, that "Jericho" could find new life on cable, but the show's high production costs surely will prevent that. What should really be considered, though, is the route taken by a show like the clever and funny sci-fi series "Firefly," which misfired on the small screen for one beautiful season but then was reborn in a spectacular feature film on the big screen ("Serenity"). No matter who wins the election in November, an action-packed movie about a divided America struggling to remember and instill its core values would surely ring true — and ring box office cash registers.
Britney Spears' guest shot on ‘‘How I Met Your Mother’’ meant a million to CBS — in curious viewers.
Her appearance Monday was seen by 10.6 million viewers, or a million more than the audience for the comedy’s first new episode back from the strike last week. Among the 18-to-49-year-old demographic, it was the most-watched episode of the series ever.
Bob Newhart will return to television in August as the star of ‘‘Herb’s Murders,’’ a two-hour original telefilm on the Hallmark Channel.
In ‘‘Murders,’’ Chicago-native Newhart, 78, will play a Los Angeles detective who investigates a publisher’s killing along with his daughter, also a police officer.
The project is one of several announced this week by Hallmark.
Other projects are ‘‘The Ride of Her Life,’’ with former ‘‘7th Heaven’’ star Stephen Collins; ‘‘Thanksgiving Reunion,’’ headlined by Jacqueline Bisset, which will air in November; and ‘‘Ladies of the House,’’ about three women (Pam Grier, Florence Henderson and Donna Mills) who work on a home renovation project sponsored by their church.
And then there were 10. In the first-ever double-elimination round on "Dancing with the Stars," it was the statuesque Monica Seles and the Sasquatch-footed Penn Jillette who were shown the ballroom door after two weeks of competition. No surprises.
I correctly predicted Seles would be gone, but I was torn between Adam Carolla and Penn Jillette on the men's side. Okay, I picked the wrong guy. I should have factored in Julianne Hough's fan base; that will keep Carolla around a few weeks longer.
Jonas Brothers positively delighted the ballroom crowd judging by the howls and squeals. The "Stars of Dance" bit, a Cirque du Soleil-inspired aerial ballet of sorts, was pretty but just didn't play well on television.
Samantha Harris stupid moments: The awkward props session with the guys huddled around Steve Guttenberg, Harris asking the gents to comment on what it meant to them that Steve made it through to the next round. Who thinks up these time-wasters?
Seen on the scene: Henry Winkler ringside Monday night... hmmm. Could he be contemplating a turn on the dance floor next season?
Shameless ABC show plug: Monday night, it was the veddy British "Bachelor" Matt Grant. Tuesday night it was Oprah's designer pal Nate Berkus ("Oprah's Big Give"). Berkus would be PERFECT for next season's "Dancing." ABC,
This kind of practical analysis is fine for the business pages, but there are artistic elements to the entertainment we can't get into the habit of ignoring. Simply put, the story on this new "season" of "Jericho" was weak.