Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Al Capone's Vault Revisited
There was a glimmer of hope for reality TV last night.
Yesterday was the finale of "The WB's Superstar USA", the mock American Idol show where they take all of the worst singers and tell them how wonderful they are. The final episode promised to be one of the cruelest train wrecks ever on TV, where they would announce the big "winner" and then right at the greatest moment of their life, strike them down by saying "ha ha, it's all fake, you suck!"
So what happened? A ditzy blonde won, but I don't think even Richard Hatch would have understood what was going on. She was told "We lied to you... we weren't looking for the best singer in the country. We were looking for the person who thought they were the best singer." Huh? She was understandably confused. When interviewed later, she was given a check for $100,000. The two runner-ups were given $10,000. And they all said the same thing: "it was fake? so what? I had a lot of fun, I got to travel, and I made a lot of money."
What's good about this is that the smug producer/judge got stuck with a lousy ending for his show. There were no tears, no flying fists of death. The greatest moment of HIS career turned out to be a huge dud. For one brief shining moment, the contestants struck a blow on behalf of 15-minute-famers everywhere. What they said to the producers was "We may be stupid, but you're stupider!" (sic.)
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There was a glimmer of hope for reality TV last night.
Yesterday was the finale of "The WB's Superstar USA", the mock American Idol show where they take all of the worst singers and tell them how wonderful they are. The final episode promised to be one of the cruelest train wrecks ever on TV, where they would announce the big "winner" and then right at the greatest moment of their life, strike them down by saying "ha ha, it's all fake, you suck!"
So what happened? A ditzy blonde won, but I don't think even Richard Hatch would have understood what was going on. She was told "We lied to you... we weren't looking for the best singer in the country. We were looking for the person who thought they were the best singer." Huh? She was understandably confused. When interviewed later, she was given a check for $100,000. The two runner-ups were given $10,000. And they all said the same thing: "it was fake? so what? I had a lot of fun, I got to travel, and I made a lot of money."
What's good about this is that the smug producer/judge got stuck with a lousy ending for his show. There were no tears, no flying fists of death. The greatest moment of HIS career turned out to be a huge dud. For one brief shining moment, the contestants struck a blow on behalf of 15-minute-famers everywhere. What they said to the producers was "We may be stupid, but you're stupider!" (sic.)
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