Roger Catlin | TV Eye

A New Bachelorette

One of the two women rejected by Brad Womack on the finale of the last run of "The Bachelor" will now become "The Bachelorette."

DeAnna Pappas, the brunette who had her heart broken by the Austin bar owner (who rejected her after buying a ring for her and having her dad fly in so he could ask for her hand), will now have a chance to break her own hearts.

The last two Bachelorettes weren't lucky in their choices. Jen Schefft rejected the marriage proposals of her final two suitors; Merideth Phillips was engaged for a year to her choice, but it broke up. But the first Bachelorette, Trista Ryan was the longest-lasting relationship in the whole rose-giving history of the franchise.

DeAnna's season won't start until summer. Before that comes the 12th edition of "The Bachelor" (whose identity has been so far unannounced) due in March.

The Huckabee Trick

I got two e-mails this morning about the dumbest non-story of the day. "Entertainment Tonight" announced with great pride that it would not be showing a piece of film it got that allegedly showed Heath Ledger at a drug party.

It was very easy to delete these things. But it was astonishing to find this "story" as the lead piece of entertainment news many places, including the Courant's web page.

Who'd fall for this? The same people who fell for Mike Huckabee's press conference a while back in which he showed a negative ad that he announced with a great flourish that he wouldn't be using.

Got that? He was seeking credit for not showing a negative ad that he was in fact showing to everyone. Likewise, "Entertainment Tonight" with its dumb theme song was pretending to take the high road by not showing a tape it said it had. Oh it could show it if it wanted to, its repeating e-mails kept saying, but it was above all that.

Here's how to really take the high road: Don't even mention it at all.

'Eli Stone,' Vaccines and the SAGs

Geraldine Gillung writes:

I read your comments about tonight's episode of Eli Stone.  Yes the hubbub is overdone, and the show is fiction, but it is irresponsible to insinuate that vaccines do not cause harm.  That was probably not your intention, but my husband read it and jumped to the conclusion that it is untrue that vaccines cause harm.  This is a very serious issue facing parents of young children today. We are grandparents of a young toddler and this issue causes a great deal of anxiety.  If you begin reading deeper into the issue than just the headlines that appear in the news you will understand that a cavalier statement can cause a great deal of misunderstanding.  I for one come down on the side of the parents.  They know their children and observe them carefully.  Thousands of parents are not making up the fact that their children were sickened by vaccines.  I taught school for over 30 years.  When I began teaching the children were healthy.  Little or no autism....diabetes......RA.......asthma.......severe allergies...Chrohn's disease ,cancer etc.  Nothing else can explain the sickness of our children today.  As the vaccine schedule increased so did illness.  Take the time to read reports about the health of non vaccinated kids.  Then make sure that your commentary is careful and responsible.

I wrote that comment in response to a quite surprising story in the New York Times last week that all but suggested that the episode not be shown at all because it was contrary to some scientific studies on the issue. That was what I considered the hubbub. I meant to insinuate nothing in my column. My intent was to say let the episode be shown and let viewers decide (though my understanding now is that because of the pressure, it will run with a disclaimer).

The Moment Drags On

Sitting and waiting for a lie detector to let the world know whether you're lying about the most personal things in your life can make time grind to a halt.

For George, the toupee-wearing gambling addict who was spilling beans about his life in the overly-popular premiere of "The Moment of Truth" didn't just have a long night last week, he was still in the hot seat as the second episode started tonight.

With so much time between the asking of each question (with a doom bell each time), the answering of each question and the response of the disembodied lie detector voice, minutes can go by before we get past a single inquiry. And that's only if there isn't a commercial break first.

George is the only guy to have won money in the show so far -- his son convinced him to walk away with $100,000 than to risk frittering it away with a lie on the way to the top $500,000 prize. But he's only the second contestant the show has ever had, and they've played two hours of it so far.

The third contestant is a prospective medical student who in early questioning has determined she's been surgically enhanced, thinks her mother is fat, would hate to see her little sister get married first and (when we left) was being asked whether she conspired against other women on pageants she's been on.

It's a hateful little show and I hope dearly it didn't get the numbers tonight it did last week. Or else we're turning into "The Network" faster than even Paddy Chayefsky expected.

Down on Me

What's made Janis Joplin so popular suddenly on "American Idol"?

The blues singer would have turned 65 this month had she not died in 1970 at the age of 27.

That’s 20 years before some of the indulged young contestants who sang her songs in Miami Wednesday were born.

They both came from indulged and confident young women whose very confidence tripped them up.
The first of them was Shannon McGough, 18, who won such singing competitions as Okeechobee Idol and South Florida Idol (despite a burping problem). And she has an interesting back story working in her parents meat shop.

"I would definitely not be devastated by not working with bloody meat anymore," she said in her roundabout way. She was quite sure of herself when she began a quite over the top version of "Cry Baby," heavy on wailing, short on song.

"Was there any melody in that song at all?" Randy asked.

"That was like the Hungarian Janis Joplin or something," Simon declared. "I couldn’t understand a word of it."

He went on: "It sounds like you’re eating when you sing."

"I'm what?" she asked

"Eating," he repeated. "Your mouth is doing weird, weird things."

She was a little shocked. "I've never had somebody tell me that I sing bad before. It's like crazy to me."

At show's end came a singer with her own TV singing competition pedigree –- a top 20 finalist on "American Juniors."

Don’t remember it?

It’s the pint-sized version of "Idol" that appeared after the second season in 2003. Ryan Seacrest was host of it as well.

"Do you remember me at all?" asked Julie Dubela of Stratham, N.H., approaching him.

He couldn't quite place her. But not all the footage has been destroyed. So we saw a clip of 12-year-old Julie singing with the group, "One Step Closer to Heaven," one of the singles the group issued before the show was canceled after one season.

"That was a good show,” Simon deadpanned. "Loved it/

"That was a very interesting show," Randy chimed in. "It was a riveting program."

"I love watching kids that age sing," Simon went on.

Her breathy and theatrical version of what she called "Me and My Bobby McGee" didn’t convince the she had advanced too much.

"It's all very very very over-rehearsed, over dramatic and not great," Simon said.

"I'm just acting like myself right now," she said.

"That’s the problem," Simon said.

Like the other teen Janis-wannabe, she didn't want to hear it and immediately launched into a second song, unbidden.

"No one has never said no to her before," Paula said after she left. It was the same thing she said after Shannon's audition.

Back out in the hallway with her old friend Ryan, she was feeling sorry for herself. "You know, the worst thing I was asked to sing at a Red Sox game today, and I gave it up to sing here."

Behind her, a sad song played – in a brilliantly mean move, it was a tape of 12 year old American Junior Julie singing "Rainy Days and Mondays (Always Bring Me Down)."

When the present day Julie added her fake smile to the snide recommendation to viewers, "Don't audition for 'American Idol,' don’t watch the show," it cross faded into a shot of her at the end of her Carpenters number four years ago, with the same fake smile.

It was one of the meanest things I've seen on "Idol" and one of the most perfect.

The Oceanic Golden Ticket

It's understandable if your faith in Oceanic Airlines has been undermined.

After all, the one flight most people know about, #815, is the one that crashed en route from Sydney to Los Angeles, providing the basis of the series "Lost."

As a survivor of that crash, Dr. Jack Shephard was shown last year to have gotten a golden ticket from Oceanic, presumably as part of his settlement. It allowed him to fly anywhere in the world, at any time, as many times as he liked. He was using up his golden ticket, partly because he wanted to crash again (he hasn't been himself lately).

Now, the wholly fictional Oceanic is offering everyone else its golden ticket.

But to do so you have to keep watching ABC Thursday after the "Lost" recap show at 8 p.m. and fourth season premiere at 9 p.m. A promo will explain it all during the premiere of the legal show that follows at 10 p.m., "Eli Stone."

Most "Lost" fans will probably prefer to spend that hour shaking their head in wonderment and reflection.

But a golden ticket is a golden ticket. I'm tuning in.

Tampons, Condoms and 'Survivor'

The day after signing up for two more seasons, Jeff Probst was on the phone, talking up the latest variation of "Survivor," starting next week on CBS.

"Survivor: Micronesia" is the name, though it’s being shot the same place as "Survivor: Palau." And the twist is having 20 "favorites" from past casts (if you can call Jonny Fairplay a favorite) playing against 20 fans (as if you can say anyone who applies for "Survivor" isn’t a fan).

But I had a long lingering question. If the participants can only bring one personal item – a toothbrush or pendant – why are so many women still looking so well groomed and glamorous toward the end of the 39 day ordeal? They must be allowed to shave, right?

Probst was glad to have the opportunity to refute this notion.

"They’re given absolutely nothing," he says. "They’re given a pot and a machete and a flint and that’s it."

Contestants come with the clothes on their back and frankly the question galls him, Probst says. "Even my mom continues to ask me, 'At tribal council, the women look quite beautiful. Are they wearing makeup?' No!"

As for the hairlessness of the women, Probst says, "some of them get a laser procedure beforehand that goes in deeper than shaving."

And while "Survivor" has yet to shoot in high definition, the host says, "Let me tell you, those women have more hair than you can see on day 25."

He recalled a challenge where one woman had to raise her arm over her head and didn’t relish the impending camera. "She said, 'Oh man, this camera is going right up my armpit.' "

So it is a concern of theirs, he says. But he insists, "they don’t have tweezers and they don’t shave.

"People ask, 'Why don’t they arrive wearing three pairs of underwear? We strip search them before they arrive, is why," Probst says.

Everything is tightly controlled, he says. "We provide tampons and condoms and that’s it."

Say what?

Well, they don’t want any "Survivor" babies, Probst says.

And while there has been speculation of "Survivor" hookups in the past, that strange infrared nighttime footage has so far shown mostly only castaway cuddling.

But that all changes in "Survivor: Micronesia."

"We have love affairs this season – plural," Probst says. The love affairs, which play a big part in the game, play out until the end of "Survivor: Micronesia" and start from almost the beginning, he says.

"From episode two they start. And it’s the most intimate footage we’ve ever had of love affairs developing and consummating in a 'Survivor" way."

(By that does he mean the partners say, "Want to know what you're playing for?" to one another first?).

"It was brilliant how we got it, how we captured it," Probst says of the footage which by all rights should have been on the internet by now. "They tried to hide, but we out-thought them and got great footage."

Now, how much of it can they actually show at the 8 o’clock hour, even in infrared?

I suppose we shall see.

"Survivor: Micronesia - Favorites vs. Fans" starts Feb. 7 on CBS.

Belated 'House' Decorations

Christmas came to "House" Tuesday, a month late. The holiday didn’t have all that much to do with the plot, which featured Janel Maloney of "West Wing" fame.

But the hospital was decorated, the soundtrack had holiday songs and the staff exchanged names for secret Santa (but twisted so that House would receive all the presents).

Fox has been stretching out its episodes so that it will just barely make it through the post-Super Bowl slot with not a special episode but at least a new one (they’re still calling it "a special 'House' event" -- because of the timeslot instead of content).

There was also an ongoing discussion on the usefulness of lies as if to tie in to the other post "Idol" hit, "The Moment of Truth." (coincidence no doubt).

But it was good to see a new episode, especially one with a sweet twist at the end about a donkey riding Mary in a pageant.

Wrong Door

On the fifth of seven audition shows Tuesday, even "American Idol" producers seemed to be getting tired of tryouts.

On the show's first stop in Omaha, more time was spent on inter-judge relations, the early absence of Paula, the return of Paula, the tryout of Ryan as a judge in place of Paula, yet another return of Paula, some arm wrestling with Ryan and Paula. And eventually, they heard from some singers too.

There was the kid from Fremont, Neb., who was way too excited about just being there. There was the guy who kept forgetting his lyrics from Stout, Iowa. There was the Council Bluffs woman who was a former professional wrestler Lady Morgue, about whom Simon said "You’re just really strange."

The ones who got through seemed to be from out of state, such as Samantha Sidley of Los Angeles, who got through despite the whole Ryan-takes-over-as-judge thing.

There was a rock guy from Tulsa and a country singing female arm wrestling champ (both got through), a soul singing wanna be from Scottsbluff (who didn’t get in) and a singer from Charlotte, Iowa, "the smallest town in the history of life" (who did).

Everybody seemed relieved to be going to Miami for Wednesday’s edition. There’s only one audition night left after that.

More 'Celebrity Apprentice'

You'd think they had depleted the willing D-listers in the current "Celebrity Apprentice."

But the network announced plans for a second "Celebrity Apprentice" starting in January 2009 -- presumably with a different cast.

The current run has been doing well enough -- even without Gene Simmons in the mix -- to repeat the ploy, in which various "names" compete to raise money for charity (so far the difference has been in who can call the most rich friends for donations).

They've also upped the finale to two-hours on March 27.

With the writers strike still going on, what else do they have to fill the time?