I can’t help but wonder why the network went with importing Z-grade quasi-somebody, “I use to be in N-Sync”, Joey Whoever, as the show’s host. Certainly, this was the more expensive option (unless he’s that desperate, he offered to pay for his own ticket and accomodation – which, maybe, isn’t that far-fetched); so what did the boys decide Joey could bring, that would be impossible from hiring a local host? Does it say something about Nine’s current pool of talent? Perhaps. But I wondered if it was a way of overcoming one of this show’s apparent hurdles in adapting to an Aussie audience. We’re not a particularly boisterous bunch, as far as studio audiences go. It’s why there’ll never be an Aussie Oprah or Jerry – we tend to be restrained to a collective giggle, or a polite clap. At our outer-peaks, we reach thunderous applause – but The Singing Bee requires a distinctively American enthusiasm, for it to work. It’s basically an extravagant drinking game (even I felt like a stiff vodka); and it requires a sober audience, psyched up enough to recreate a drunken party-game atmosphere, a large group of people with a complete absence of self-consciousness. Does having that big American voice commanding the affairs, guarantee this, by facilitating a cultural cross-over from an audience who spends more time in American television than it does its own?
 
If so, it worked; and if you ever wondered what schoolies week would be like, if it were attended by bogans in their 30’s and 40’s, you should probably make some time for The Singing Bee, next Sunday. If not, don’t bother. I’d love to have something positive to say – at very least, about its harmlessness, in comparison to the manipulations and propaganda of most contemporary television. And it’s certainly without harm. It’s just that it’s without anything else, either.
 
It’s supposed to be a relatively empty experience, after all – and I’ve nothing against those – but it’s also supposed to be an entertaining kind of emptiness. The actual nature of the “game” relies on nothing more than that vaguely interesting sentimentality in recalling cultural icons of our youth, as contestants must simply finish the line of a song, after Millsy (it’s a long way down after Paris, hey, Millsy?) and some other talent who can’t actually sing, belt out hits of the past. As a single variation, contestants must also “fill in the blanks”. But that’s it. These two, almost identical, games repeat themselves, three times, and the show’s done. And so, it must rely on the pizazz that happens, almost symptomatically, of the game as a sort of spine, around which, the real action occurs.
 
But ten minutes in, I was left so desperate to find something amusing, I chuckled at an ochre truck-driver from Bayswater, wearing a pink shirt, singing (badly), “It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to.” And no, that’s not very funny; but a comparitive mindset is always the ultimate pitfall of attrocious TV. By the end, when the truckdriver failed to correctly fill in the Britney Spears lyrics, I was positively outraged when Joey remarked, “Well, you had the right song, at least.” “Oops, I did it again,” the truckdriver sang. But it wasn’t Oops, I Did It Again – it was Hit Me Baby, One More Time! Joey was wrong! That’s an outrage, I tell you!
 
Several minutes later, I was released from such a world – where a truckdriver in a pink shirt, singing 50’s girlie tracks, was funny, and the host making an incorrect Britney reference was scandalous – and I was incredibly grateful to be out. I didn’t make the mistake of putting myself through Rove’s latest venture (though, I’ve nothing against a show which markets itself on making intelligent children look cool, it should be said), and I’d ask you, out there, never to summons me to such rubbish, ever again. Only quality television for Aaron Darc, thanks very much.
 
Now, back to Idol.