TV Column: Steve Jones and Nicole Scherzinger exiting ‘X Factor’

By Lisa De Moraes,

“I wont be hosting next seasons X Factor which is a shame but I cant complain as Ive had a great time. Good luck to everyone on the show,” “X Factor” host Steve Jones tweeted Monday evening.

Fox later announced that both Jones and judge Nicole Scherzinger are gone from the show.

News of Jones’s booting came as a surprise to no one. Even before creator Simon Cowell put out word late last year that he was going to make “improvements” to the show for the next season, The Reporters Who Cover Television had been circling Jones and Scherzinger for months as though they were flotsam and jetsam of the so-called improving. Various tabloids reported ages ago that Jones’s contract would not be renewed.

Fox suits said in December that they would sit down in January and talk to a few focus groups, comb through the data, present their findings to the producers and then let Simon decide who would get it in the neck. Right around now!

In the final weeks of the season’s “X Factor,” Steve was noticeably lacking the carefully tended 26-hour facial growth that is the standard for American reality-show hosts — a clear sign the situation was dire. We all knew somebody was going to pay for the show’s disappointing ratings. Cowell had promised that the American version of his British hit would take down “American Idol” and attract at least 20 million viewers. Instead, “X Factor” didn’t even put up a good fight in its first season in the United States, even against “Idol’s” depleted audience levels.

And because we’ve watched lots of CBS’s “Undercover Boss,” we know that when the top guy (Simon) tries to figure out what’s gone wrong with his vision, some poor middle-level slob usually gets blamed. That meant you, Steve.

As chief timekeeper and rule enforcer, Jones should have studied up on “American Idol” host Ryan Seacrest, who manages to make the wrangling of over-egoed singing-competition judges look super-easy. But Jones, the Welsh model turned handsome TV-show host, managed to make it look grim, including one memorable moment in the show’s first season when he told “X”-testants to stop hugging because he had an interview to conduct with the booted singer.

On the other hand, Jones lent a desperately needed daffy artlessness to the show’s aura of self-importance. Like the time he summed up Lenny Kravitz’s results-night performance with, “Handsome man!”

Gosh, we’re going to miss Steve!

Scherzinger, on the other hand, we won’t miss at all.

Originally cast to co-host the show, the former Pussycat Doll became a last-minute replacement for one of the show’s four judge/mentors, Cheryl Cole. In that role, Scherzinger was a triumph of beauty over brains. Simon said it best when he announced, after Scherzinger took to the stage in one episode to sing her new tune, “Pretty,” that he would critique her performance Nicole-style:

“I believe in you. You believe in me. You transcend the universe. God is smiling on you. Life is a waterfall, and you are the ultimate rainbow.”

At a news conference Fox staged in Los Angeles to try to gin up a bigger audience for the season finale, Scherzinger declined to confirm she’d be back as a judge next season but did pave the way for a graceful exit, saying: “It has been very hard on me, the elimination process. It’s something I could never have been prepared for.”

First Family drama

USA Network has ordered six hours of a drama series called “Political Animals,” about a former first family-cum-political dynasty that’s on the verge of falling apart. Tell us whether parts of this sound vaguely familiar:

The alpha dog of the Fictional Former First Family is the divorced former first lady, who’s the current secretary of state. Elaine Barrish is struggling to keep her family together while dealing with the crises of the State Department.

Secretary Barrish finds an unlikely ally in a famous female D.C. journalist, named Susan Berg, who has spent her career tearing down Elaine.

One of the show’s producers is Greg Berlanti — the co-creator/exec producer of that other “fictional (wink wink)” political-drama series, “Jack & Bobby.”

“Jack & Bobby,” which debuted in 2004 on the now-defunct WB Television Network, was about two good-looking, Kennedyesque brothers, one of whom would become president of the United States — in 2041. And, of course, you knew it was fiction, because the one who became president was Bobby.

Over six episodes, “Political Animals” will expose the dark, human side of life and the often disastrous effects of political ambition, exploring themes that resonate “in the current political landscape,” said the basic cable network, which is owned by NBC Universal — the Comcast-owned media outfit that recently put Chelsea Clinton on the payroll.

MacLaine is ‘Abbey’ bound

Shirley MacLaine has been cast in the third season of PBS’s “Downton Abbey,” the crunchy-gravel drama’s U.K. producers announced Monday.

Thankfully, the show features an American-born Lady Grantham character, played by Elizabeth McGovern, so MacLaine can play her mother convincingly, even with her flat mid-Atlantic accent.

That is in marked contrast to the time MacLaine played the legendary French designer Coco Chanel with a flat mid-Atlantic accent, in a 2008 Lifetime bio-flick.

When asked by TV critics why she wasn’t asked to do an accent — given that the young Coco in the flashback scenes had a heavy French accent — MacLaine responded peckishly that it was because “I wouldn’t have done it.”

“I’m not Meryl Streep,” MacLaine snapped.

“You don’t ask Sean Connery to play with a French accent; you don’t ask Shirley MacLaine to play with a French accent,” added “Coco Chanel” director Christian Duguay, jumping in during that testy Summer TV Press Tour 2008 encounter.

Critics were too polite to note that no one had asked Sean Connery to play Coco Chanel.

Anyway, “Masterpiece” executive producer Rebecca Eaton seems to get it, noting in Monday’s announcement: “Shirley MacLaine is a great actress and she’s as American as the day is long.”

Eaton also promised that there would be much sparring in the show between MacLaine’s character and Maggie Smith’s Lady Violet. My money’s on Smith, no matter how the scenes are written.

Anyway, Gareth Neame, managing director of the series’ producing partner, Carnival Films, noted that he’s particularly pleased with the casting of MacLaine because his late grandfather directed her in “Gambit” in 1966.

Ouch!

WikiFox

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange — who is under house arrest in Britain in connection with sex-crime allegations in Sweden — will play himself on the 500th episode of Fox’s “The Simpsons.”

Assange, an Australian, recorded the guest spot over the summer for the milestone Feb. 19 episode.

“He’s a controversial figure, and there’s a good reason he’s controversial,” “Simpsons” exec producer Al Jean — a master of the obvious statement — told Entertainment Weekly.

Assange is under house arrest in connection with a European arrest warrant issued in 2010. The warrant is in response to a Swedish police request to question him as part of a sexual assault investigation.