On The Lot

Is anyone else out there watching On the Lot? In case you aren't and have no idea what it is: It's a reality show on Fox (wait, don't leave yet, let me finish) where contestants make films to compete for a deal with Dreamworks. Each week they screen their films and then we, the audience, get to vote for them. It's kind of like American Idol, only I actually have some sort of interest.

Instead of Randy, Paula and Simon as judges they have two permanent judges and a guest judge who changes each week. The two permanent judges are Garry Marshall, who appears to have become a doddering old man, who occasionally leaves you wondering if the words he just spoke can even be combined to form any sort of a sentence, and Carrie Fischer, who is single-handedly trying to ruin the Leia in the gold bikini scene from Return of Jedi for any guy who still remembers it. (All joking aside, she seems to be able to give useful criticism and express ideas better than most judges on any of the reality talent shows.) Last night, the guest judge was D.J. Caruso, who was repeatedly introduced as the director of Disturbia. I found this a little disappointing as I would rather think of him as the director of the very clever Salton Sea rather than Rear Window for Teenagers. Caruso also was able to speak intelligently and usefully while giving critiques, praising specifics while giving pointers for future attempts. Maybe other shows need to take a hint and have judges that are helpful rather than universally praising everyone or insulting people...of course this was just one episode, so we'll see how that continues.

Last night, the 18 finalists screened their films for the audience for the first time. Their assignment was to make a one minute comedy short film. The films ranged from great to "I'm sitting here with my mouth open staring at the TV trying to figure out what that was." A couple of people failed to manage to even grasp the assignment and made trailers for longer films. Several people went with lowest common denominator type humor (peeing, farting, etc.), but only one really made it work, while the others were blasted by the judges.


My big problem is that the show was very obviously set up in the American Idol format, because while only 18 one minute films were shown, the show itself lasted for two hours. Fortunately, I started late, so I could fast forward through a good bit of what the host had to say.

Will I keep watching it? Sure, until it gives me a reason not to. I was the same way with AI when it first came out, but I eventually realized that it wasn't a singing competition and that no matter who won, the music that was put out was fairly derivative and formulaic. That might be the end result with this show as well, but for now, I'll keep enjoying the ride.