Reality TV Tragedies this week...

This has been a bad week for reality television for two reasons:

1. American Idol--Why, oh why the injustice? For some VERY strange reason the American Phoning Public decided to dismiss Constantine Maroulis and retain Scott Savol. Let me break this down by moving from the shallow to the substantive.
a. Scott does not have the rockstar look. Constantine, bedroom eyes and all, has the bad boy rocker look that will sell albums regardless of his talent level. After all, Scott goes out dressed like joe homey on the street, nothing special, nothing that accentuates a level of attractiveness. Constantine, rocker all the way, wears what will enhance the image he has built for himself and has a crowd of adoring females trailing him.
b. From my informal straw polling around work and among friends, most people are completely baffled as to how Scott (or Anthony for that matter) has managed to dodge the bullet so many times. Case in point, Anwar, nice guy, not bad looking, and good voice, yet Scotty "the body" manages to beat him out in the voting. I am still not understanding how he beats out the rest of the contestants.
c. Presumably, since this is a singing contest, America would choose a good singer to be retained while a bad singer would be asked to leave. Not so. Admitedly, Constantine does not have the best technical vocal ability of the group, but to be let go before Scott is a tragedy. Scott sounds like a half blitzed karaoke singer on a cruise ship. He is "pitchy" as they say, and has very serious issues maintaining his key. His voice quality sounds week. There is no force behind his vocals. Plus, he is prideful. All you need to do is watch one of his evals with the judges to know that he thinks he is it, not because he has a healthy belief in his ability, but because he has a high level of ill-disguised pride. Constantine, well American Idol he may not be, he at least had more talent than Scott.

2. Second reality TV tragedy occurred tonight on the Apprentice. This week brought us to the final four in the grand Trumpian quest for business immortality. Here is the breakdown of the remaining applicants:

a. Craig--self made shoe shine business owner, older gentleman with a family and children. Downside: tends to treat younger job candidate contenders as if they were his children: aka condescending!

b. Kendra--youngest remaining contestant, college graduate, clashes with Craig on a regular basis. Downside: can be immature and whiny.

c. Tana--Mary Kay top seller. Self made success, very smiley. Downside: Smiliness can seem forced. A little too into superficial things....like, in this week's case, beads.

d. Alex--Lawyer, very motivated and highly qualified for the task of apprentice. Downside: he has been on a losing streak lately.

So here is what went down. They two teams were assigned a task to complete and the unlucky losers happened to be the team of Tana and Alex. When they arrived in the boardroom the loss was ascribed to the lack of a coherent marketing strategy during the task. By the end the blame seemed to be pretty squarely pinned on Tana since she had mis-prioritized part of the task that cut out the marketing. But for reasons as yet not understood, Alex, the only one remaining that In My Humble Opion was even qualified to hold a senior exec position with Trump, got the boot.

Sortof helps fuel my outrage that Alex was the one I was rooting for, and that he has the same name as my husband. Oh well, I will survive, after all it is just TV.

Oh, in other Reality TV disappointments, Survivor officially stinks now. I really thought it might be cool this time, and was cleverly fooled until about last episode. I think it might have run its course. It is essentially the same rehashed show just with different faces and different recycled challenges.

Ok, maybe I should spend less time in front of the TV. I think this is my signal!