On The Lot

For those who haven't seen it, On The Lot is supposed to be a reality contest to find the next great director. The prize is a million-dollar deal at Dreamworks, and the show has some serious Hollywood players. Obviously, Dreamworks is involved, which means Steven Spielberg (whose name gets mentioned every five seconds or so). The judges are Garry Marshall, Carrie Fisher and a guest judge each week.

Or, I think so. It's hard to know, because the format keeps changing. If anything, this show is illustrative of exactly what's wrong with Hollywood - they won't let something develop an audience, and are constantly tweaking with things undoubtedly as the result of market research, etc.

The show started as a Project Greenlight style show, similar perhaps to The Apprentice, where contestants pimped themselves for an eventual job. Suddenly, after two episodes (in the same week), the format changed.

As did the host. Gone was someone named Chelsea Handler, replaced by someone named Adrianna Casta. Both are eye candy, not much more - or at least that's how they've been used.

Gone was third judge Brett Ratner, replaced by the guy who directed Disturbia. And all of a sudden, the show was more American Idol or Rockstar than anything else. That resulted in at least one very good contestant (the British guy named Phil) being ditched in favor of young, cutie Jessica. That's fine, such things happen.

Now? The show is going to be just one episode a week. But...how does that work if the audience vote is how things work? Maybe it will just go back to the judges? How can they keep changing this, week by week? All it ensures is they'll never build an audience.

Hollywood is run by morons. This show was supposed to laud the industry and create a lot of buzz...all it's doing is revealing how mismanaged the process is.