By Lisa de Moraes
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Will Gwen Stefani beat Paul McCartney's dancing one-legged estranged wife in next week's battle of the competition series? Stay tuned Tuesday from 9 to 9:07 p.m.!
After carefully rescheduling "Dancing With the Stars" so as to get it out of the path of Fox ratings monster "American Idol," ABC learned that Fox will expand by seven minutes the allegedly one-hour "Idol" performance show next week -- meaning it will go head-to-head with the first seven minutes of the first results show on this edition of "Dancing."
When ABC announced its new play pattern for "Dancing" in January, ABC Entertainment chief Steve McPherson said in a statement that "the great thing about this air schedule is that fans won't have to choose between the two reality hits this spring."
The fourth edition of "Dancing" debuted Monday to its biggest opening crowd ever -- nearly 22 million viewers. Much credit is going to the casting of Heather Mills -- the show's first one-legged competitor, as show host Tom Bergeron noted frequently. Mills says she's doing the show to inspire children who have lost limbs. Cynics suggest she's also waging an image-repair campaign to neutralize the juicier bits about her that have surfaced during the sometimes acrimonious divorce process.
This is the first time that "Dancing" competitors get to perform two weeks before one is eliminated. This is a direct result of what we like to call the Tucker Carlson Factor. Last edition, Carlson was booted the very first week -- not because he was a lousy dancer, though he was, but so were others on the show. Theory is it was because the former CNN commentator turned MSNBC show host didn't have a big enough fan base -- people simply didn't know who he is, and "Dancing" competitors are eliminated based on how many points they get from voters and the show's judges.
So this week, there was no Tuesday voting results show. Not coincidentally, "Idol" had, as had long been planned, a two-hour performance broadcast on Tuesday. In the early going, when "Idol" is fat with competitors, performance broadcasts tend to run two hours. Next week was to have been the first Tuesday performance show to be a trim one hour.
Word from Fox is the "Idol" producers wanted the extra seven minutes because they have Stefani on board. Trying to jam 10 performances -- and all those ads -- into one hour is tough. And, when you think of it, one more four- or five-minute ad break leaves only about two minutes of actual additional programming.
Fox snagged Stefani to be a guest "mentor" -- they don't like to call them "coaches" -- to the "Idol" competitors as they rehearse their performances of pop tunes next week. Stefani is a big "get" for the show in that she's under 50. Most of the show's guest mentors and judges -- Barry Manilow, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Diana Ross, Gladys Knight, this week's Lulu and Peter Noone, etc. -- are not. Stefani is just 37.
But Stefani's got stuff to sell. Her second solo album opened soft; released on Dec. 5, 2006, it has sold only about 1 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, though sales picked up as its second single became a hit.
She's also launching a tour, opening next month in Vegas, and on her Web site, almost all cities still show ticket availability (in the Washington area, she'll play the Nissan Pavilion, which holds about 20,000 people).
It's unclear just what Fox will do with the extra minutes on Tuesday. Stefani is not going to perform her single "The Sweet Escape" until Wednesday's results show -- the traditional night for the guest mentors to sing and plug whatever it is they're selling.
Outside Fox, the industry wasn't buying the whole "Idol"-producers-wanted-extra-time-just-'cause thing. Outside Fox, the talk was of Fox's "kill-it-in-the-cradle school" of counterprogramming. Airing "Idol" against the first results show of this "Dancing" edition smells like more of same, the grumbling went.
* * *
Sanjaya Malakar lives to sing another day, and now there are two people in the starvation-for-Sanjaya hunger-strike movement who must decide whether he's worth dying for on "American Idol."
Even more upsetting, that adorable little Ashley, who wept through Sanjaya's performance Tuesday night, was put in her seat by show producers (who'd seen her cry over him during dress rehearsals) so they could grab that perfect girl-weeps- during-Beatles'-performance-on- "Ed-Sullivan-Show"-esque moment during Sanjaya's live performance. Is nothing sacred?
Oh yeah, and Stephanie Edwards is out, after looking like one of the stronger contenders in the early stages of the competition.
But not until after Peter Noone and Lulu -- this week's guest "mentors" in Fox's singing competition -- come out to perform.
There is a reason guest "mentors" don't sing on performance night. Most of them don't have much voice left. Or, in the case of Herman's Hermits lead singer Noone and Lulu, never had much of a voice to begin with. If the competitors, most of whom have no idea who these mentors are they're being saddled with, heard them sing before they performed, they might listen to their advice even less than the, um, not-at-all they currently listen to them.
Lulu, who sings "To Sir With Love" because it's the only song anybody knows she ever sang, looks great -- several male colleagues report having developed a little crush on her.
And Noone, who looks less well preserved though still much better than, say, Mick Jagger, sings "There's a Kind of Hush," which was one of his bigger hits and includes the catchy lyrics:
La la la la la la la,
La la la la la la la la,
La la la la la
La la la la la,
La la la la la!
Noone looks like he's having a great time, waving and smiling at the occasional person in the crowd as though he knows who they are -- like Tyra Banks the last year she did "The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show."
Then, Stephanie gets the boot. Bye-bye, Steph.
* * *
Three of ABC's freshman series -- none of them sitcoms or serialized dramas -- are among the 13 prime-time series the network announced will be back for the 2007-08 TV season.
The lucky shows are "Ugly Betty," "Men in Trees" and "Brothers & Sisters."
ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson told advertisers yesterday the list also includes "The Bachelor," "Boston Legal," "Dancing With the Stars," "Desperate Housewives," "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," "Grey's Anatomy" and "Lost." He also announced next season's return of Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show.
The network already had renewed "America's Funniest Home Videos," "Supernanny" and "Wife Swap."
Advertisers are in Los Angeles this week as the broadcast networks take turns chatting up their program development for next season at the March Development Meetings.
Once upon a time these dog-and-pony shows were open to the news media and a good time was had by all. Then grumpy men took over the broadcast networks and now only NBC allows reporters to attend its presentation. NBC's presentation happens today.
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