Vacant Lot

Did you watch the premiere of the highly touted realoty competition series On The Lot on Tuesday night?

Check out this excerpt of an article in Variety by Rick Kissell

...A special preview of Fox's reality [show] from Mark Burnett and Steven Spielberg which seeks to find the next great film director, squandered a huge chunk of its "Idol:" lead-in as viewers opted for hoofers over helmers in the night's middle hour. While "On the Lot" will be judged on how it fares in its regular timeslots when it bows next week, the opening-night tune-in wasn't especially encouraging.

According to Nielsen same-day viewing estimates, "On the Lot" averaged a 3.9 rating/10 share in adults 18-49 and 8.54 million viewers overall, coming out of the final Tuesday edition of "American Idol" (9.7/27, 25.24m).

"On the Lot" saw its audience dip sharply as it progressed. Although it remained in second place in key demos, it fell to fourth place in total viewers from 9:30 to 10 (6.2 million).

Fox offers another preview of the show tonight prior to beginning its regular [schedule] next week...

To be honest, I dislike "reality TV" quite a bit and will only watch something in the genre--if there's nothing else on...And even though the network has been promoting the hell out of this sucker, I forgot it was on! I only stumbled onto the show while channel surfing at 9:45 PM. Despite its film industry backdrop what I did see of the launch didn't really do anything for me. It all seemed rather un "real" to me.

Carrie Fisher, Garry Marshall, and Brett Ratner are there to judge and give out assignments--You mean to tell me these three have nothing else going on right now? I feel sorry for them...

The competitors I saw during the last few moments seemed very underwhelming....

Is this a case of sour grapes on my part? Because they have a huge shot at making it big? And I'm still just blogging about film--I don't think so. It's more about that I'd rather do things the normal way then be in that hyper real situation--where I'm reduced to a TV personality known more for how I handle myself in a hyper-real situation--than my skills as a filmmaker... Look what happened at the now defunct Project Greenlight.

I wish 'em luck just the same.

The Boston Globe says of the series: Spielberg adds star power but little inspiration to 'On the Lot'