Tuesday, January 09, 2007

I'm Danny's older brother, Zeke Zuko.

So for no other reason than nothing else was on, I watched the first episode of You're the One That I Want on NBC the other night. For those who might have missed this, it's another American Idol clone, with the twist here being that there will be two winners, a man and a woman, who will then go on to play Danny and Sandy in an upcoming Broadway production of Grease.

My verdict? Unless you're slavishly in love with Grease, I recommend eschewing this Idol-clone in favor of the genuine article, which returns next week.

You're the One... has all the usual trappings of Idol. People who can sing audition amongst people who can't in front of a three-judge panel that includes, as do all such reality-teevee shows these days, a blunt male from England. In fact, we should have a word for such, don't you think? Here it is: BluntBrit. So hopeful contestants come out and sing, and if they're good, BluntBrit praises them; if not, BluntBrit castigates them. Bluntly.

And since the object of the show is to cast Grease, a show whose songs are all 50s-style pop tunes, that's all the auditioners sing. With Idol, you hear lots of different stuff from the contestants, but here, not so much.

Worst of all, You're the One... is intercut with clips from the movie Grease, as one would expect. But despite them showing these clips in widescreen format, they still screw up the aspect ratio, so you get that "squashing" effect that afflicts widescreen movies when they're just crammed into the TV frame.

You're the One... stinks. Avoid at all costs.

2 comments:

Call me Paul said...

I think the token blunt male judge on any panel should simply be referred to as "The Simon."

Kelly Sedinger said...

No! Everybody already uses some variant of that. I'm sticking with BluntBrit.