Because I just squashed the most squirrelly bug in recorded history I will celebrate by writing about trashy TV shows. Praise be.

American Idol

Yes, we all heard about Mario Vasquez dropping out. My take? I think he’s an utter genius. He’s risen to the top of the heap on a very popular show in a competition that, frankly, he was sailing through, gotten publicity you can’t buy, and now leaves to do his own thing likely involving plenty of offers for contracts all on his terms. Had he stayed on, even if he won, he’d be shackled with whatever Fox’s likely iron-clad contract stipulated. Brilliant move, I say, and one that we won’t see repeated. You can bet Fox’s lawyers are fine tuning all of those contracts and future contestants won’t even be heard until they’ve signed their lives away.

On to the actual show, Cat and I agree that this is now Anwar’s competition to lose. He’s got the voice, the looks, the presence, and the shine to make it. There are some decent others but none in his caliber: Constantine is alright, but has nowhere near the voice to carry it through, Bo has a lot of goods but will not win, Anthony is capable but had a hideous performance the last time through, Scott is not in this class of competition, Nikko kicked ass regardless of what Simon said and is a serious contender. There’s a lot of male talent here, not as much female. Nadia is the shining star right now with the same types of positives that Anwar has, though perhaps not the perfect voice, Jessica has a good voice and decent looks but comes across as too uppity, Lindsey is out of her league, I’ve never gotten Mikalah though she was moderately impressive at points last night, Vonzell has a whole lot going for her if she could step it up a notch and Carrie is the All-American girl with great looks and a good voice but was quite shaky last night.

Alias

I’ll warn you now, we’re still schlepping our way through season 3 on the DVDs and have the current season on the DVR so any spoilers in my comments will necessitate me hunting you down like a dog. I’ve heard a lot of scuttlebutt that season 3 is just so much crap and that the story arcs go in impossible directions. I haven’t hit there yet and it is currently the only non-reality show that Cat and I are addicted to. Sure, we hit the CSIs but those aren’t so much grand dramas… they’re like the Monster Of The Week episodes on The X-Files, you don’t have to have watched from the beginning to get into them.

Some things irk me about the show. Probably the worst so far is the death of Sloan’s wife. The setup: a highly-trained CIA agent with a sniper rifle is sitting in a perch overlooking this villa. Sloan and wife are running through an open field. Highly-trained CIA agent takes aim and is about to pull the trigger when a helicopter flies over causing him to flinch. Hence, highly-trained CIA agent shoots wife instead. Does the highly-trained CIA agent fire again taking down his intended target as the intended target lingers over the dead body of his wife and then reluctantly boards the helicopter that so scares the shit out of the highly-trained CIA agent? No, he does not. Instead highly-trained CIA agent agonizes over his misfire, dramatically rolling onto his back with such a forlorn, woebegone expression of sorrow that I almost hemorrhaged.

Another one just happened in the episode we watched last night. Let’s trap this saucy thief that may have insight into Sydney’s disappearance. We’ll have Jack Bristow act as a client who gets the thief to perform a job for him, then when he does the job we’ll, like, cut off his earlobes and poor salt into them or whatever Jack Bristow does when he’s particularly constipated. So, we’ll have Jack Bristow meet with the guy to set up the job, then la-di-da-di-da. What the hell? Why not just grab the guy then and there? You arranged a meet, Jack. He’s standing within 2 feet of you. Why go through the complication of arranging this goofy job so that Bad Guy #2 can get good pictures of you and show them to Sark… who Sydney already knew this group had dealings with and who could identify Jack more reliably than I could my own dimpled ass?

It’s those contrived scenarios that drive me crazy in those types of shows. Don’t get me started on 24. Note to 24 producers… if you’ve got live, adult humans that can’t escape from a bear trap without other human intervention, even when they have the use of both hands, you’re reaching.

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