It’s Camillia all the way, don’t you think? She’s the one you’re waiting to see, she’s the one you can imagine standing on stage at the end, perhaps with her arm over Michael’s shoulders, and she’s the one that Paul Ellis could make a record with.
She’s also the one who really looks like she could hold an audience for a whole performance (“Purple Rain”!!). I think we’re ready for our own booty-shaking Beyonce, she should get her own version of the “Uh-oh” dance now.
There’s a lot of singing, crying and padding out the hour before then though. As the NZ Idol numbers get trimmer, so the “backview” items, or whatever they’re called, get fatter. It’s hard not to see the Idol factory as a spin-off training ground for prospective new TV presenters – Jesse looked quite good.
Yes, I’ve surrendered to the Idol experience. Bring it on. Awesome. My family keeps me humble and strong, etc. I had been in two minds up to now -- on the one hand, all the gains that have been made in New Zealand music have been by original artists, unique to us, performing their own songs. You can thank NZ On Air’s Kiwi Hit Discs as well, and the involuntary radio quota, for getting programme directors at radio stations who were too stupid or lazy to find local music for themselves onto the bandwagon. NZ On Air brought the music to them on a platter, you might say. The discs are now up to number 64, plus they’ve had to split them up into Indie Hit Discs, Iwi Hit Discs and A/C Hit Discs – that’s Adult Contemporary -- such is the breadth of music now being made in Aotearoa.
On the other hand -- what the hell? If our music industry is buoyant enough to sustain an Idol artist, and if there’s money to be made here and overseas, why not? The winner, Camillia that is, will still have to work her booty off and be that person. It’s not a free ride, as you might remember if you saw John Safran’s Music Jamboree last year.
One song we’d like to see on Sunday: Big Dave singing The Stylistics’ “Betcha By Golly Wow”. Someone should have done “Sometimes When We Touch” for the ballad show too. It’s not too late.
Chris McKay wrote to say that he and his wife are enjoying widescreen episodes of Alias on DVD via Amazon.com because they were sick of TV3 dicking around with it, and:
The episode you referred to the other day has a voiceover from the cast. All very amusing, but the interesting thing is that the show was broadcast in the US just after the SuperBowl at 11pm and JJ Abrams quite merrily chats about the opening shot being ‘fortunate’ to have Jennifer Garner in her underwear so as to grab drunk sports fans’ attention before they switched channels or fell asleep.
Ah well, quelle surprise and all that. US online reviewer Catharine Tunnacliffe at Eye Weekly has referred to Jack and Sydney Bristow as “TV’s most intriguing couple”. It seems it’s getting a bit weird there in the third season. That’s not a link to the story, as it contains a massive spoiler which you may not want to know. (I’ve also just seen the March 13 issue of New Idea at the doctor’s and it totally gives away the cliffhanger for season two. I guess that’s the trouble with being an Aussie mag publishing in a NZ market.)
The story can be reached via TV Tattle if you must, which also carries a story about Quentin Tarantino being US Idol’s latest guest judge. No word about whether contestants will be wearing yellow tracksuits and carrying swords to curry favour, although “Kung Fu Fighting” might be a popular song choice.
Sally recommends popcultablog, “A new blog from Dave Pell, the guy behind davenetics, nextdraft and the (now essential for me) electablog.” Man, that guy is funny. And concise too. Ahem.
Matt Heath and Chris Stapp, who you may remember from such programmes as Back of the Y are now doing Thursday Drive on bFM. In between the Deja Voodoo songs and the relentless self promotion, they’ve had plenty to say about television violence -- get violence off the streets and back on television where it belongs seems to be the gist of it -- and some thoroughly scurrilous things to say about Sue Kedgely too. They should thank her, really, for providing them with so many jokes, and I’m sure all the “What a Pig” kids who ate a cup of fat and four day’s worth of sugar over the weekend would like to thank her too.
Jake Pollock writes that he watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a child,
and was probably involved in a bit of ninja kicking and nunchuk action thereafter. I also watched Voltron, Super Ted and the Gummi Bears (all of which are rather disturbing and violent in their own right). I am now, I like to think, a well-adjusted and thoroughly non-violent individual. I remember the cartoons of my youth with fondness, but they don't inform my day-to-day actions -- at least, not in any way that I'm aware of.
I asked, but TV One can’t say when they’ll be starting Six Feet Under again.
Lastly, here’s something to make your day. Sky has just announced it has started filming its first local reality series. The Player features 10 guys holed up in an apartment who are assigned certain tasks to test their sex appeal and general ability to be a playa, y’all. It will be fronted by (who else?) Nicky Watson. Produced by (who else?) Touchdown. Something to look forward to in May.