By Lisa de Moraes
Tuesday, November 7, 2006; C07
When the going gets rough over at Fox, you can count on the network to reveal something -- about "American Idol."
Take yesterday, a.k.a. the First Workday of the Rest of Fox's Life, after the numbers came in on its Great Thursday Ratings Crash, two workdays after its guillotining of "The Rich List."
"WHO WILL BE THE NEXT AMERICAN IDOL?" Fox asked rhetorically.
"TELEVISION'S NO. 1 SHOW RETURNS FOR ITS SIXTH SEASON WITH A TWO-NIGHT, FOUR-HOUR SEASON PREMIERE."
The annual "Idol"-audition orgy of excess gets underway Tuesday, Jan. 16, and Wednesday, Jan. 17, the network said. Details followed.
This is Fox's charming way of getting our minds off the fact that in the past few days it:
* Wrapped the lowest-rated World Series in history, possibly longer.
* Pulled new game show "The Rich List" after just one broadcast.
* Yanked "Happy Hour" just one week after its return to the schedule.
* Had to give "The O.C." the scheduling equivalent of mouth-to-mouth -- a tryout this week in its old Wednesday time slot -- in response to its DOA Thursday return in which it snagged its smallest-ever audience (3.4 million viewers) to virtually tie the CW in the time slot.
In the season-debut episode, which picked up five months after we last saw Ryan clutching dead catastrophe-magnet Marissa (Mischa "I'm So Outta Here" Barton):
* Ryan explored the therapeutic benefits of cage fighting.
* Summer turned into a chicken-saving, militant-recyclist, rich-girl menace.
* Julia took drugs that caused her to prune shrubbery in a pith helmet with a bandanna covering her face.
* Dr. Neil was blackmailed into buying thigh-high, black-patent-leather come-hither boots.
Add all four to your You Know a Show Has Jumped the Shark When . . . list.
Fox has had some success dangling "Idol" news whenever it needed to distract the Short-Attention-Span Reporters Who Cover Television. Like during that recent TV industry luncheon in which the heads of the broadcast networks' entertainment divisions got grilled by a trade reporter. Fox wasn't having much luck with its early launches of shows, and programming chief Peter Liguori dazzled the crowd with another mention of a possible "Idol" move to Thursday nights. Ears perked up at the Short-Attention-Span Reporters Table, until NBC programming chief Kevin Reilly broke in with, "Oh, they're playing that same game again." And the spell was broken.
Anyway, the good news is, "Idol" information flew fast and furious yesterday. For instance, we learned that audition episodes will air on three consecutive Tuesdays -- Jan. 16, 23 and 30 -- and three Wednesdays -- Jan. 17, 24 and 31. And the lucky ones who survive the ordeal will be highlighted in the semifinal round, which will air on Feb. 6, 7, 13 and 14 .
* * *
Just in time to make this year's Way Past Caring list, Ellen Burstyn finally spoke publicly for the first time about being nominated for an Emmy for her 14-second, 38-word performance in the HBO TV flick "Mrs. Harris."
"When they told me I was nominated for that I went, 'What, are you kidding?' " she told the Associated Press.
Grievously for the Reporters Who Cover Backstage at the Primetime Emmy Awards, Burstyn did not win the prize for best actress in a TV flick; her co-star Cloris Leachman won, robbing all the stopwatch-wielding reporters of the "Burstyn's acceptance speech lasted 45 seconds longer than her Emmy-winning HBO performance" leads they'd been counting on.
Burstyn told the AP over the weekend her nomination was "fabulous" and that this year she was hoping to be nominated for a seven-second performance. "Ultimately, I want to be nominated for a picture in which I don't even appear," she said.
The actress claimed that when the Emmy kerfuffle erupted she gave a statement saying, "This doesn't have anything to do with me. I don't even want to know about this. You people work it out yourself."