Now this is what you call bad television.
“Grease: You’re the One That I Want” is two hours of “reality” television at its worst. I know television networks have no shame, but NBC can’t be proud of this lame attempt to spin some “American Idol” luchre their way. We finally get through the monotonous preliminaries to the talent portion of this casting contest, and the producers bring back two surprise cry-baby contestants, Ashley and Matt (left), just to spice things up. Then, when America (and by America we mean a very, very small percentage of Americans) votes, the judges ignore the will of the people and off the two “surprise” cry-babies who shouldn’t have been brought back in the first place.
Ridiculous. And Sunday night’s two-hour episode (watched in a much more digestible 45 minutes — thank you, TiVo) was not at all helped by the presence of Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, who presided over the Sandy candidates bombasting their way through his songbook, while the Dannys, inexplicably, attempted to over-choreograph their supposedly “sexy” songs.
I’m done. I can’t devote precious Sunday-night time to this anymore (especially as Ricky Gervais’ brilliant “Extras” is coming to a close on HBO). I’ll check in online and see who gets dumped in future weeks, but my attempt to digest a fatty, gristle-ridden chunk of reality TV — only because of the Broadway bent — is tabled … at least until the return of “Project Runway.”
Some real talent (director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall) (left) is involved in this process as well as some non-talent (“hosts” Billy Bush and Denise Van Outen). All the worst reality TV trappings — dumb-ass sound effects, slow-mo, agonizing repetition — are here in full force and nearly ruin the show.