Tag Archives: Summer TV

June 13, 2007 · 1:47 pm

Another One Bites the Dust: The CW’s ‘Hidden Palms’ Will Make Quick Exit

While there was no question that The CW had no intentions of keeping Hidden Palms around next season after its terrible opening numbers, the series has been given its walking papers a little bit sooner than expected. Four of the five episodes of the show remaining after tonight’s episode are going to be burned off in two-hour installments over the next two weeks; as a result, the show will have its series finale on July 4th, according to TheFutonCritic.com.

The show was pretty well doomed to failure: launched without a successful lead-in and with sharp competition from FOX’s So You Think You Can Dance? in its key demographics, Hidden Palms was never going to make a huge impact. Reality TV has basically staked summer as its territory, even as some of those shows fail to sail through the summer seas, and it appears that serial drama just isn’t a huge draw. Traveler, which airs its fourth episode tonight on ABC (10pm) has been surviving with decent ratings, but it certainly hasn’t broken out even comparably to the dreadful celebrity impersonator show airing before it.

So, for fans of The CW’s summer drama, enjoy the month of June. Afterwards, another summer program drowns in its attempt at being the next seasonal sensation.

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Filed under Hidden Palms, Television, The CW

Tagged as Summer TV

June 12, 2007 · 8:30 am

Why I am Not (Yet) Watching ‘Canadian Idol’

For those of you who realize that I am in fact Canadian, and that I spent a fair amount of time covering American Idol, you might be wondering why I have yet to even care to mention the recent launch of the summer programming juggernaut that is Canadian Idol. And, for those few of you who meet that description, I have this following explanation: it’s not at all compelling for me.

While the audition stages are always a huge draw for the American Idol audience, and for good reason, I believe that Canadian Idol has never quite figured out how to achieve the desired effect. On American Idol, the audition stages provide a glimpse into the future of the competition: with each episode you get an idea of a certain level of talent, and you connect with these people. I think a lot of it has to do with the judges: the dynamic that Simon, Farley and Paula have created is something consistent, set in stone. When people step before them we can immediately predict their reaction, or approximate it at the very least. This is, in actuality, a good thing: it allows the candidates to be judged on a fairly consistent set of standards.

I don’t know what it is about Canadian Idol’s judging panel, but I swear they’re all of them schizophrenic. They outright jeer certain contestants like an over-sized peanut gallery, but then fawn over others who are merely average. One second Farley’s Mr. Nice Guy, the next he’s destroying some poor contestant. Sass usually has nothing of import to say, and yet she can’t even decide whether she’s mean or nice in the process. Yes, I know most of this is purely natural behaviour: Zack isn’t a villain all the time, so why should be play one on this show? These people have to like people at some point, so what’s the problem?

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Summer TV Preview: The Return of FOX’s ‘The Loop’

I was up late at night trying to get to sleep and stumbled upon something on my snowy antenna reception in my dorm room that caught my attention: much as I had, months earlier, stumbled upon an episode of The Office (US) that got me hooked on the show, this series became of interest. That show was ‘The Loop’, a comedy that debuted on FOX last year to, well, not so great numbers despite an American Idol lead-in for a brief period. After catching up with the series, I found it to be an entertaining little diversion with an incredibly engaging lead actor in Bret Harrison. However, when it was surprisingly renewed for a 2^nd season, there was talk of changes, and a fair amount of people worried that the show would lost its integrity when it airs two episodes tonight at 8:30 EDT and 9:30 EDT on FOX. I am not one of these people.

The reason I was unconcerned is that the reboot of the show maintains all of the elements I liked, and gets rid of elements to which I felt little to no connection. The show was designed as a young executive who, despite moving up in the corporate world, still exists in the world of his youthful friends. Thus, he was stuck between two worlds: it was a decent concept, let’s be honest, but the problem was that it was the corporate world that was the most entertaining. Philip Baker Hall was hysterical as his out of touch boss. Mimi Rogers was bitingly funny as his Milf co-worker, and most importantly his over-educated and resentful secretary was the source of the show’s most consistent comedy.

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