Paula Abdul & Live To Dance: Worst-show-ever

Inside Television 535

Publication Date: 1-7-11

By: Hubert O'Hearn

Robbie sez - shhh! this show is crap (actually no he didn't - Inside TV lawyers)

I've been a fan of the UK singer-songwriter Robbie Williams for about 10 years now. Robbie has never made the kind of impact in North America that he has in Europe; my theory being that he can actually sing and that's just not a qualification for success on this side of the Atlantic. Anyway, a few years back he had a hit singing a duet with Kylie Minogue called 'Kids'. I quote from the chorus:

And we'll paint by numbers
'Til something sticks
Don't mind doing it for the kids

I bring this up because I spent an hour Tuesday evening watching an hour of the Paula Abdul produced new show, 'Live to Dance'. It was a two hour show. I watched an hour. Does that tell you something?

Generally speaking, I don't write negative reviews. I'd much rather encourage you to read or watch something than discourage you. But sometimes there comes along a show that is just so ridiculously manufactured that it just begs to be commented upon. Which is still better than being pissed upon, unless you're into that sort of thing.

What is truly, spectacularly, boldly fascinating about the show is that it is the least original thing to appear on a TV screen since the days of the old Indian head test pattern. It is as though the elements of the show were chosen from a Chinese menu from a Chinese restaurant whose only features are chicken balls, chop suey, packaged fortune cookies and some green thing stuffed in a brownish pastry sock and loosely associated with an egg roll. The whole effect was akin to attending a high school reunion where only the boring kids bothered to show up.

You of course have the standard three-judge panel. The ever-wiggling and gushing Abdul, Kimberly Wyatt from celebrity-slut singing act The Pussycat Dolls, and someone named Travis Payne who did choreography for Michael Jackson. I guess he needs the work.

Wyatt, who has the personality of a napkin, isn't worth commentary. Payne at least has a certain gusty laugh when he likes something: MAH-Ha!-Ha! He would make a great pirate king in a melodrama.

The judges vote with the same sort of light-up buzzer system as used by 'America's Got Talent' and the auditioners were presented in exactly, exactly, the same manner as 'American Idol'. See the crowds! See the limos! See the judges! See the crowd cheer the limos and judges! Yay judges! Yay limos! Yay us! We're on TV! Yay! U!S!A! U!S!A!

Well, the crowds didn't exactly chant U!S!A!. But the show did. Small children...will ris from the ghetto because they have Arrived on television! Old people are now hip and nimble of his because they have Arrived on television! Young lovers will now go to romantic success because their relationship has been Blessed by television! Praise the Lord and pass the chips at commercial break!

The only original bit, so to speak, is that the judges occasionally change their mind, spurred on by the audience chanting 'Change your mind.' But even this was about a s spontaneous as the results of Wrestlemania as the background music was the soft sound of soft singers singing 'Change your mind.' Yuh huh.

Can anybody dance? Oh I guess so, but dance without story or context is just a series of moderately interesting quasi-gymnastic moves. Big fat hairy deal. No, this one is all about how appearing on Reality TV and being blessed by Paula Abdul will makle your life better. Amen.

Be seeing you, but I won't be seeing 'Live to Dance' again.