Back in June, The A.V. Club took a look at some of the remaindered reality shows that TV networks dumped into the off-season. Two of those dumpees, Hell's Kitchen and Dancing With The Stars, turned out to be good television and surprise hits. How well has the second half of summer's reality-TV slough-off fared? The A.V. Club returned to the tube—and ventured into the deadly realm of basic cable—to continue the study.
Situation: Comedy
(Bravo, Fridays at 7 p.m. ET)
Premise: It's Project Greenlight for the boob tube, as aspiring comedy writers pitch sitcom ideas to a team of NBC-affiliated producers. The top two scripts go into production for a 15-minute test pilot, with the better of the two getting a shot at becoming a series. (Shot not guaranteed.)
Humiliation factor: Low to moderate. All the producers make an earnest effort to be nice, because this is show business, where power brokers pat people on the back with one hand and usher them out the door with the other. It's mainly up to the rube contestants to make asses of themselves by overestimating how much their hosts love them.
Insight into the human condition: Remember the old warning about too many cooks? Like Project Greenlight, Situation: Comedy shows how the Hollywood development process leeches away the originality that the industry pretends to admire, leaving behind the formulas and fashionable faces that the industry actually prefers.
Summary: Speaking of formulas, Situation: Comedy follows the standard reality-show formula of restating the premise every few minutes, stretching 20 minutes worth of action to fill an hour. But it's still fascinating to watch the two finalist writing teams—one offering a Rushmore-esque piece of schoolboy whimsy called Stephen's Life, and the other fronting an old-school joke-a-minute family farce called The Sperm Donor—deal with their shifting fortunes and lack of real power. One minute they're treated as promising new talents, and the next they're just contest winners, lucky to have a studio day pass.
So You Think You Can Dance
(Fox, Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET)
Premise: Would-be Broadway stars show off their skills at pirouetting, high-kicking, sashaying, krumping, breaking, popping, and/or locking to producer Nigel Lythgoe and his team of trash-talking choreographers. Once the field is narrowed to 16 competitors, the American public's legendary dance-evaluation skills take over to determine the winner.
Humiliation factor: Diffuse early on, but when the choreographers spot a malingerer or an extra left foot, they go for the jugular. The show all but accuses two quarter-finalists of faking injuries to hide their incompetence, and king-sized contestant Allan is unlikely to escape the adjective "elephantine," even though he's made it past the first rounds.
Insight into the human condition: Talent is not enough. Many of the street dancers who delivered jaw-dropping moves in auditions look like lost lambs when asked to dance with a partner or learn choreography. Professional training and experience don't hurt either. Blake, a recent dance-magazine cover boy, makes starry-eyed fans out of the teachers who are supposed to be judging him.
Summary: So You Think You Can Dance isn't as easy on the eyes or ears as its inspiration, American Idol, because good dancing is more diverse and difficult to recognize than good singing. But the contestants and authority figures alike have a refreshingly candid bitchiness, and the final rounds are sure to feature some appalling judgments by the text-messaging masses.
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