Roger Catlin | TV Eye

'Rock the Cradle'

Sad that the one of the cheesiest new reality shows in a while comes on what used to be the cutting edge network MTV.

Now with a premise more boring than anything VH1 would try, they're bringing in the kids of former MTV stars to perform and compete. Well, they turn out to be not necessarily more talented than any nine people you'd pick at random. A few are pretty good, most wouldn't make the first cut on an "American Idol" audition because, don't fool yourself, all this is is another "Idol" rip, with a panel of judges and home voters and a dopey Hollywood audience that boos every time there's a negative comment, no matter its accuracy.

Ryan Devlin, the terrible host who makes Ryan Seacrest seem reasonable, calls it "the first genetic talent competition" but he may have well said "generic."

What's common about the young adults in this group is what terrible childhoods they had. Their famous mom or dad was hardly ever home, they never got to know the celebrity parent until they had grown up -- and their parents' careers had cooled. Cooled enough to appear on a show like this, not as an "Idol" mentor but as stage dads and moms, rooting from a VIP section and trying not to be too embarrassed.

But people like Lil B Sure had to live a life of embarrassment with a name like that from Al. B. Sure (didn't he have an exclamation point at the end of his name once, too? Not any more). His voice was terrible, still he got huge scores from the scariest judge Larry Rudolph whose footnote to fame was being Britney Spears' old manager (what can I say? the dude knows talent). "You're not a good singer," he told Lil B Sure. "You're a great singer." (He's pretty terrible.).

The judges are a weird bunch and not only because of Rudolph. The only entertainer among them is Belinda Carlisle, formerly of the Go-Go's, apparently imported from her Paris home. Otherwise they are judged by a choreographer (who said at one point: "DNA, you have it for sure") and a stylist, so the scores can and are be all over the place. The highest score is safe from elimination, the rest are subject to the whim of home viewers.

What future will there be for the daughter of Eddie Money? Or the big-lipped former anorexic daughter of Olivia Newton John? The son of Kenny Loggins looked just like him but sang Elvis Costello instead (actually Nick Lowe: What's So Funny 'Bout Peace Love and Understanding?"). Toughest growing up may have been done by the son of Bobby Brown. The elder Brown and Dee Snider seem to have come to "Rock the Cradle" directly from "Gone Country," stepping from one cable reality series to the next in the absense of music careers.

None try much dancing, even A'Keiba Burrell-Hammer, daughter of M.C. Hammer,who even avoids the parachute pants.

Lara Johnston, daughter of Doobie Brother Tom Johnston, has some appeal, but only because she seems alone in having a normal upbringing and is the youngest contestatnt at 17 (the others seem like, well, they should have moved to a different career path by now).

Though a record contract is offered at the end of the series (whatever that's worth these days), there's no proof any of these offspring will go beyond this bad reality show. On the other hand, Kourtney Kardashian could hardly see the fame awaiting her when she was on Vh1's "Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive" in 2005.

Nick Goes Dancing

Nickelodeon took advantage of its huge audience for the Kids Choice Awards Saturday to premiere its own version of a dance show, "Dance on Sunset."

Unlike the glut of other dance shows, this one is not strictly a competition (though it has an element that brings in some audience involvement).

Mostly, it’s an unusual half hour hosted by former MTV VJ Quddus Philippe in which a dance troupe called the Nick Six does choreographed dances to contemporary hits. Sort of like the old "Solid Gold." Except this show has elements of other shows too.

Choreographer Tommy Testa teaches how do to steps in a dance-along "High School Musical" kind of way. There’s a freestyle portion where kids in the audience spill onto the stage to do there thing where it starts to resemble old "American Bandstand" as reimagined by "Hairspray" with a "Bandstand" like countdown of the top five dance tunes (No.1 one was Mary J. Blige).

Then some of the "real people" are picked out by the Six for further competitions, the winner of which will be named Sunset VIP (though apparently not right away).

We learn too about the Six and their backgrounds, meaning Nick wants to turn them into little stars as soon as possible. And the audience members who do well inthe dance competitions can move up to be part of the next Six, a group apparently assembled like a dance Menudo.

The Nobel Peace Concert

"Live from Norway!" said co-host Kevin Spacey, somewhat erroneously. "It’s the Nobel Peace Concert."

It wasn’t live; Saturday’s broadcast was recorded in December, when artists gathered in a huge Oslo arena for the concert, held in honor of this year’s recipient, Al Gore, waving from a box, where he and Tipper sometimes stood anddanced to the usic of, say Earth Wind & Fire.

K.T. Tunstell was there too, singing her ubiquitous “Suddenly I See.”

Columbia recording artist (and by that I mean country not label) Juanes sang in Spanish. Wearing a black shirt and pants and white belt, the singer who sort of resembles George Michaels sang of peace, we are told, in “Minas Piedras.”

He wasn’t the only international artist. Kiley Minogue, a superstar in England and Austraila but a footnote here, 

And because this was a salute to Gore, there was room too for the woman who won an Oscar for the song in his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” Melissa Etheridge, whose rendition of "I Need to Wake Up" was festooned with strings and a big orchestra, which hung around to back a dramatic "Fallin' " from Alicia Keys.

Annie Lennox reworked her own "Sweet Dreams (are Made of This)" for the occasion to close the show, after a five minute Al Gore speech. The song's theme tied in with his own voice of optimism.

One highlight of the show – one of the few things I’ve seen on MyNetwork TV lately, to be frank – was a spot for the upcoming Flavor Flav sitcom “Under One Roof” in which he plays a rapper who lives with his preppy cousin. Flav’s character name: Cali Cal. This fourth rate “Fresh Prince” looks so bad it might be good.

Ashton Kutcher's 'Pop Fiction'

Ashton Kutcher has already poked fun at celebrities in several seasons of "Punk'd."

Now, he sees a new group that needs their comeuppance: the paparazzi who feed on them.
So, working with celebs only too happy to turn tables on their incessant pursuers as they are to show what an awful pests they are.

The shock in the resulting "Pop Fiction," which started Sunday night on E!, is seeing exactly how entertainment news is formed. You may never believe anything you see from gossip shows again (if you ever did) – including the daily shows on E! -- after watching how truth is derived.

For the first episode, Paris Hilton picks up an actor dressed in long flowing robes and a long grey beard and silently fobs him off as her personal guru as they go shopping for spiritual books and she gives away fake diamonds to passerby.

It becomes fodder on the internet first, then on the rabid syndicated entertainment shows, and finally in glossy pages of the gossip rags. None of the information is verified other than the pictures of the two of them together.

For Avril Lavigne, she decides to give the paparazzi a jolt by slipping in a pillow to approximate a baby bump and go shopping into two kids stores on a toney L.A. neighborhood. That’s enough to confirm through the same internet/TV show/magazine feeding frenzy there’s a little Avril on the way, though not a word of such a thing is said by anybody except one of those barking cameramen: "When’s the baby due?"

How this affects their personal lives is obvious as Lavigne and her husband Deryck Hubley of Sum 41 have to call their parents and say no, they’re not pregnant no matter what they’re about to hear.
As a show, "Pop Fiction" is stretched out a bit too long. It’s fascinating to see the jackal  packs of paparazzi from inside the star’s SUVs; if anything this will give more sympathy to anti-paparazzi legislation. But there has to be a little more to it. Maybe a third celebrity each week.

But after Paris started the season, you know it’s only downhill from here.

MTV's 'That's Amore:' Poison Meatballs

Because Italian is part of my heritage, I think I can feel personally insulted by the terrible new reality romance show on MTV, "That’s Amore."

Just as "A Shot of Love Tila Tequila" was a tasteless, unfunny rip off of "Flavor of Love" (except it starred someone who had no talent), so is the spin-off "That’s Amore" a rip of of "I Love New York" in that it's a series about an even lesser-known runner-up's search for romance.

Dominico Nesci was the lovable Italian on "A Shot at Love" who struggled with the language and with the dumb reality show he was on.

For the spin-off that started Sunday, you will never forget his heritage. His mansion is decked out in red white and green of the Italian flag, messages to the girls come delivered in pizza boxes and for their first challenge they had to fight eachother for meatballs in a pool filled with spaghetti. Instead of roses, he gives out Italian flags. His tagline is "Will you be my bambina?"

Mama mia that’s spicy reality show, they want you to say. But actually it’s sad and gross – maybe the lowest point for MTV in its entire history. The moonman wept.

A group of 15 girls scooped up from ladies night at a local Fuddruckers start scrapping with one another and restrict their fights to their body parts. Domenico think he’s in heaven and keeps saying that as the camera zooms into the body parts. A girl named Hunter earns the ire of the blonde bitchy girls who are the first to be retained.

The goofy redneck cowboy Ashley has been retained from “A Shot at Love” as his consigliere, a word he can’t come close to pronouncing.

The stabs of humor are found in Dominico’s attempts at English. "Are you getting along too eachother?" he asks one girl.

After a kissing session with another he admits: "I am a little exciting especially in the pubic area."

It couldn’t be more stereotyped if he wore a chefs hat and a big mustache.

What traits of Italy are to come? Leaning towers? Sausage jokes? A Mussolini themed challenge?

What could be worse than this? How about an idiotic after-show that shows things you want to put out of your mind, with a witless host that relies on canned laughter? It immediately followed.

My Reality Show is Worse Than Yours

NBC seems hellbent on a race to the bottom, coming out with one reality show worse than the next, with the kind of projects that even the most basic of the basic cable wouldn't touch.

Yet here it is: "My Dad is Better Than Your Dad" a variation of "American Gladiators" in which real people (almost certainly all from California) compete in ridiculous challenges for paltry sums. Ridiculous, but not ridiculous enough to be funny like MXC, the goofy remake of the Japanese series Takeshi's Castle, which seemed under the translation that it had a little humor going for it.

Not so on the NBC show where Dan Cortese presides over "the Father of all Battles" live from "Dad's Stadium" a barely disguised warehouse with oversized challenges involving slime (producing incessant bruises when dads slip and fall), climbing fake trees and carrying scorpions (they're obviously one scorpion appetizer away from turning completely back to "Fear Factor").

The kids of the dads egg them on or help in the competitions. In the quiz portion, determining whose dad is smarter than the other dads, it is the kids who ring the bell after a question if they think their dad would have the answer.

Sad that most didn't think their dads could provide the temperature at which water freezes at sea level -- even with multiple choice suggestions. And the dad of the one kid who did ring in guessed wrong, picking zero instead of 32 degrees Farenheit.

The show is from Mark Burnett, maker of "Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader," among other things. But these dads don't seem much smarter than second graders.

Yes it's a show meant to promote bonding and father-child pride (two of the dads Monday said they were participating because they otherwise travel a lot and enjoyed the chance to spend time together. But if they have to do so in the guise of a dumb game show, then their relationship is worse than they think it is.

And the school lot bullying inherent in the title is encouraged among the kids, who are heard yelling to the other adults when they are climing the fake trees to fall.

Why can't dads settle their differences the old fashioned way -- at the extreme martial arts cage rings?

'The Moment of Truth' Hurts

The much hyped new game show "The Moment of Truth" made its premiere finally on Wednesday, preying on the "American Idol" audiences that preceded it to stick around for its barrage of uncomfortable questions and even more uncomfortable pauses before they are answered.

Mark L. Walberg, the host of the original "Joe Millionaire," who can also be seen now on "Antiques Roadshow" for some reason, is the guy in charge of the show, in which contestants are promised half a million dollars if they only answer 21 questions truthfully.

The questions are of a personal and frequently personal nature ("would you cheat on your wife if you knew you could get away with it?" is one of them. "Did you hire someone to kill your husband?" was the most famous question of the original program from Columbia).

Still, people love to win money and love to be on TV and don't care particularly that they will only embarrass themselves on national TV, so they had a couple of Hollywood candidates right off the bat.

Ty Keck was identified as a Kansas native who is a personal trainer and former professional football. Yet they spared him such embarrassing questions as: By "professional" don't you mean the XFL? Or: Isn't "Ty" the nickname you use instead of your real name, Tinker?

The problem with the embarrassing questions is that the contestant answers them truthfully, there's no suspense in waiting for the excruciatingly drawn out answer from the lie detector, told by a disembodied and very slow offstage voice that "the answer is .... true."

The pauses are so long it makes Howie Mandel seem like a speed demon. Like "Deal or No Deal" or any modern primetime game show, stretching it to an hour only encourages them to slow it down even more. Questions are asked at a pace of about one for every two minutes, sapping the show of most of its tension.

Still, the network is set to make a ton on the show. Besides the cheap, common game show set (in the style of a UFO landing strip), Walberg had to give out no cash in the Wednesday premiere.

Ty had blown a question that will likely sink his relationship with his wife (the lie detector said he was fibbing when he said he didn't touch women more than he should as a trainer) and walked away without a dollar. A second contestant hadn't gone far, but already had to admit he wore a rug and sometimes stuffed his pants for comic effect.

Is it worth cash money to be this humiliated? These people didn't seem to think so.

But the focus is so low, the revelation of contestants as awful people, and the molasses pace all help make "The Moment of Truth" inadmissible as entertainment

'My Fair Brady: Maybe Baby'

Of the 12 seasons of reality TV that have spun off of "Surreal Life," most of the attention has been on the "Flavor of Love" variations. But the ongoing romance of "America's Next Top Model" runner up Adrienne Curry and the former Peter Brady, Christopher Knight, has had its own legs.

For the first season of "My Fair Brady," they tested the longevity of their relationship by shacking up together. Season two was built around their wedding ceremony. And the new third season, which started Sunday, has to do with their considering whether to have a baby.

In this, it's a lot like the show that precedes it in the Sunday night VH1 roster, "Scott Baio is 46 and Pregnant." In the follow-up to last year's "Scott Baio is 45 and Single," the new show is about his freaking out about his girlfriend turned fiance having their baby. They spend the first episode buying a new house.

In "Brady," the freaking out is more on Adrienne's end. She's not yet 25 and unworried about giving birth any time soon. He's approaching age 50 and worried about getting his family started. They also spend the first episode house hunting, where questions come up whether their home should be baby-proof or not.

Curry has cultivated a sassy appeal -- she's bitchy and burpy, the sing-songy theme to the new season puts it. "She has no filter," says her long-suffering husband. So she complains about their sex life in front of friends (and a national TV audience). When he talks babies, she talks about her boobs -- will they be OK after she has a baby?

Of immediately titillation, though, is her plan to present her hubby with nude photographs of herself for her birthday. When she decides to involve one of her girlfriends in some shots, it upsets Knight so much he leaves the house and asks for a separation (at least so say the promos).

They remain an odd couple. Though she was clearly chasing him at first, dazzled by his Brady lineage, he's now the one who seems to be holding fast as she tests him. They're also not a very likable couple. Maybe Scott Baio should come over and bond with Knight. Clearly they have a lot in common.

'American Gladiators'

"American Gladiator" is the kind of show that would be playing syndicated in the middle of the night, its goofy action only slightly better than the infomercials that had taken over other stations.

Never taxing enough to require actual attention, it made professional wrestling look complex by comparison. And yeah, the gladiator gals were hot.

It was that kind of lowly appeal – dumb violence and sexy costumes -- that made the show last as long as it did in syndication. Its move to broadcast network TV only came after a writers strike started sapping the schedule of actual content

And even with new hosts like Hulk Hogan and Tatiana Ali, it still looks like a rerun from the 80s, with new people in the cartoon-like gladiator roles, battling willing contestants for a chance – very late in the season – for a $100,000 prize.

All the usual challenges are there – from the joust to the various gauntlets – all shot in an arena with those tiresome blue lights.

The most complicated obstacle courses made it seem like an expanded English version of "MXC," the Japanese game show dubbed into English comedy schtick for Spike TV. Except this one had no humor at all. "That’s going to leave marks" is the type of mark its unseen announcer would make.

But its most recent lineage is the summer game show “Dog Eat Dog” that NBC ran in 2002 and 2003, where contestants challenged eachother in a studio and ended up falling in a pool. There was a lot of falling in pools in this one, too.

But it was also brutal enough to have one woman bleed profusely from a gash she received from hitting an underwater fight in the final gauntled; another woman was viciously tackled in the initial event, only to leave the game hobbling on crutches.

Hyping it up with phrases like "world wide sensation" and "greatest athletes of their time" and "the biggest event of 2008" in the intro only seemed to tarnish the actual event they hyped in a bug alongside the network logo: they Olympics.

Do they know they’re lying or do they really purport that this sad and laughable reality show is the "biggest event" of even the year of their precious Bejing Summer Olympics?

The woman left gimpy said she’d heal enough to return for season two.

Let's hope there isn’t one for her to come back to.

Andy Millman’s Christmas Miracle

It’s not like me to watch stuff as soon as I get it in the mail.

But I was getting sick of the usual bad holiday movies – Lifetime and Hallmark suffered writers strikes for years now. And the networks had nothing. So I popped in the "Extras: Extra Special Holiday Special" weeks in advance of tomorrow's debut (Dec. 16 on HBO) and have been marveling it ever since.

Christmas specials, like the Christmas single, mean a little something different in England apparently. Just as the Christmas single in UK means the song that’s No. 1 come the week Dec. 25 (and usually not about the holidays), a holiday special just means a special episode of a favorite TV show that may or may not feature a holiday subplot.

(Here, I don’t need to remind you, Christmas specials are treacly affairs best to be avoided with eggnog and lead-based tinsel).

Having sent off his original series "The Office" months later with a wonderful Christmas special and finale, Ricky Gervais is doing the same thing with "Extras," which like “The Office” was a two season affair (British TV seasons also being short – six episodes a shot).

And with it, he creates one of the great TV holiday specials, one that will likely endure longer than his two season HBO series did.