The Morning After: We're Coming to Your Town, We'll Help You Party Down

For some reason, the only screen-staring I did this weekend was the most recent episode of 'Friday Night Lights' and the pilot of 'Pushing Daisies'. As much as I'm trepidatious about the new 'FNL' season, (Murder? Maids? Mexico?) I sort of re-realized that even low-octane 'FNL' is way better than anything else on the networks right now.

In spite of the Very Big Mistake, as well as assorted little ones, at least 'FNL' is engaging with the America that people live in right now. The pastel bullshittery of 'Pushing Daisies' just annoyed the crap out of me, and I found myself groaning "Somebody feel something already!" for the entire pilot.

As for The Great American Band, this is actually the first I've heard of it. Guess I'm not missing much...

I TiVo'd my way through The Next Great American Band the other night -- thank God for commercial skip.

I was also disappointed with most of the bands. Some of them (perhaps the better ones?) we didn't get to see much of and that made me curious. For example, the band with the tall singer with the falsetto -- The Likes of You, I think they're called. I'll watch one more episode to see what I think of actual performances rather than auditions.

I did catch most of TNGABand and was also surprised that there weren't more gems... one of the bands had previously been signed and released an album so it doesn't even seem like there were a lot of limitations for entry.

I'm also a little trepidatious about what sounded like weekly genre challenges a la AIdol, I would prefer that a band do their own original material, but if they have to do covers they should at least pick covers that are appropriate to their music.

I assume whoever wins will be force fed new 'hit songs' to preform. But then again, America will pick the winner so not a lot of confidence there either...