The Graham Norton Show - Season 10 Episode 8

The ageing Mr Norton and his zany chat show is an acquired taste.  Rude, hilarious, completely over the top and never to be out done, he invites a frequently mismatched group of guests and celebrities onto his red couch each week, feeds them alcohol and orchestrates the chaos that ensues.

Lined up on the couch this week is Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law, promoting the Sherlock Holmes sequel with some scary bromance moves.  Joining them is tranny turned dramatic actor, Eddie Izzard and Strictly Comes Dancing UK judge, Alesha Dixon. 

Mr Norton dredges up embarrassing tidbits from their pasts, spews suggestive one liners and ejects audience members from a big red chair when he gets bored.

Quality television that never gets old, The Graham Norton Show airs on BBC Entertainment on Friday nights at 20h30

Find OntheBoxSA on Twitter for a video link.

Terriers - Episode 3

Must see TV, the Terriers are down and out but lovable ex cop Hank (Donal Logue) and ex-thief Britt (Michael Raymond-James), who run an unlicensed PI business from a beat up old truck to get by. 

In episode 3 less than honest Hank gets so desperate to secure a loan to buy his ex-wife's house that he takes on work from a loan officer, promising him a loan in return for proof of his wife's infidelity.  Poor Hank quickly realises that the wife is actually faking her affair in an attempt to satisfy her deeply troubled and masochistic husband, and he ends up helping her by concocting photos of a phoney motel interlude.  But when he ends up sleeping with her himself later, things go terribly wrong.  Meanwhile, Britt has to cope with a blast from the past when one of his criminal buddies comes knocking. 

Whilst the subject matter is a bit heavy, the approach is refreshing and light and the characters are warm and believable.  Clever, rich and engaging, Terriers is marvel in this day of hypnotic paint by numbers crime dramas and cop shows.

Terriers stakes out M-Net Series on Thursdays at 21h30.

Adele Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Has 2011 been a very hard year for you?  Are you worried that 2012 might really be the end of the world?  And are you sitting at home on New Year's Eve?

Watch Adele Live At The Royal Albert Hall on SABC3 on Saturday 31 December 2011 at 21h30.  And end it all.

Happy Holidays!!

This blog will resume on 29 December 2011.

X Factor USA Finale

The X Factor USA Finale turned out to be a perfect choice for Christmas Eve, because like the holiday, it was a highly anticipated but ultimately painful affair with a few special moments.

In all fairness, singing in front of the world, with five million dollars at stake must be nerve wracking.  Unfortunately for the three remaining contestants, Josh Krajcik, Chris Rene and Melanie Amaro, it was about to get worse when, for their first song, they had to do a duet with a superstar and avoid swallowing glitter.

Josh Krajcik got decimated by Alanis Morisette, whilst Chris Rene and Avril Lavigne languished in mediocrity and Melanie Amaro  had to sing alto to a hysterical R Kelly.  The duets were almost unwatchably bad - probably because the contestants were forced to sing in a key that showcased the voice of their famous partner instead of their own. Better suited for a results show than a finale, but we guess they needed it for the ratings. 

For their final song, the contestants had to choose their own favourite. And yes, horror of horrors, that meant that Chris heated up another serving of "Young Homie".  Ultimately though, the night belonged to Melanie with a ridiculously powerful performance of Beyonce's "Listen".  She might not be a single parent or a recovering drug addict with a secret hand shake, but she undoubtedly has the most talent.

Don't miss the final results show on M-Net on Sunday 25 December 2011 at 17h00.

Justin Bieber is coming!!

Flash

Need to brush up on your A List celebrities in SA? Then Flash is for you.

In the Christmas edition, it's all about celebrities and their charities. Beauty queens got some stiff competition from sporting hunks in the Eastern Cape based Incredible Race.  And we found out which celebrity went one better than giving socks and gave school shoes instead.  We also got a sneak preview of the glitzy locally produced Clifton Shores, the new reality show set in our favourite celebrity destination, Cape Town.

Flash airs on SABC3 on Fridays at 21h00.

Stay tuned next week for a humourous review of 2011.

Sneak Peek: X Factor USA Finale & Results

M-Net has a very special gift for us this Christmas: the star studded X Factor USA Finale & Results shows.

It's just a pity that with social media and the internet, most of us have already shaken this gift so much we already know exactly what is inside.


The finale belatedly airs on M-Net on Saturday 24 December 2011 at 18h00 and the final results show airs on Sunday 25 December 2011 at 17h00.


Who knows, we might have forgotten who won by then.

Unnatural History - Pilot

It's the Harry Potter of history, Henry Griffin!  Unnatural History plots the adventures of young Henry (Kevin G. Schmidt) and his two side kicks, nerdy but loyal Jasper (Jordan Gavaris) and book smart and cheeky Maggie (Italia Ricci) as they creep around old gothic buildings, spout latin and solve historical mysteries.

A worthy protagonist, Henry is no ordinary teen.  His parents are travelling anthropologists, so he has been exposed to those mythical countries that are rumoured to exist beyond the borders of the US. As a result he has attained mysterious powers and can climb a wall like Spider Man, catch darts out of mid air and beat up adults with slow motion kung-fu.  He is a complete stranger to uniquely American institutions such as sarcasm and high school though.

Charming nonsense and harmless holiday fun, Unnatural History is fast paced, entertaining and educational: a history lesson with a Harry Potter dynamic for extra spice that is not just aimed at the tween market.

A live action product of the Cartoon Network, Unnatural History cleverly resides on M-Net Series on Wednesdays at 19h30 instead. 

An Idiot Abroad - Episode 4 (Mexico)

We are still not buying it, but it is growing on us.  Sensible and hyper conservative Karl Pilkington is willing to be called a "round empty headed chimplike moron" on television and as his reward gets shipped off to various unpleasant international locations for a holiday from hell for our amusement? How much could they possibly be paying him?

Once you get past the glaring fakeness, seeing Pilkington sincerely ask every Mexican he meets if they have Mexican jumping beans, and wondering if he could buy any in a pet shop, does have a certain charm. Probably the phoniest travel program you will ever see, but maybe also the funniest.

An Idiot Abroad airs on Discovery Channel on Tuesdays at 21h20.

Shameless - Pilot

Shameless, a new series on M-Net, is in fact exactly that, a shameless Americanised copy of the original hit British series of the same name that started running in 2004.  Frame by frame, line by line, the pilot episode is an almost exact duplicate, even down to the camera angles and editing.  But like some foreign play it has been adapted to make sense to the poor insular locals. The characters might sport the same names and spout the same lines, but all British slang has been neatly edited and replaced with an American version.  Jarringly, the basic premise of the show itself, shameless poverty, has also been adjusted to be more attuned to American sensitivities.  Poor now means living in a nice large house that is not expertly decorated, and having perfect teeth and a healthy appearance, but no Gucci.

Is a British accent and some foreign slang really such an insurmountable obstacle to the average American viewer as to require the complete re-enactment of this show?  And when their TV executives sell this junk on to other countries, do they really think we are similarly narrow minded and ignorant enough to not consider this remake and re-sell of old cheese anything but utterly and spectacularly insulting?

Shameless airs on M-Net on Tuesdays at 22h00.

If this is the first time you have heard of this show, rather go rent the British original.  It is actually, uh, original and absolutely brilliant.   

Work of Art: The Next Great Artist - Episode 1

If you can’t get enough of the random subjectivity that prompts Project Runway fashion dictator, Heidi Klum, to snap “OUT” at a failed and teary fashion designer – like it’s a Pomeranian that piddled on her favourite carpet – then Work of Art: The Next Great Artist is for you.  Certainly more ordinary looking than the collection of bong smoking liberals we might have expected, the contestants have to fight the clock and each other to create works of art that appeal to the random tastes of the judges in an attempt to avoid elimination.  Whilst the formula is tried and tested, the subject matter is not.  Over the years we have passively judged models and chefs and ultimate fighters and bachelorettes from the comfort of our arm chairs, but even Heidi's cowering fashion designers never produced anything as utterly subjective as art.

What makes a good artist and a worthy winner?  Here’s a quick guide for those of you less familiar with the characteristics of a true artiste.

        

A pretentious and/or exotic name

First and foremost, an artist must sound like a real artist.  Leading by example is their mentor, Simon de Pury.  Like a true genius, he even sports an unidentifiable foreign accent

An artsy appearance

Secondly, an artist must look like an artist.  Stylishly severe host and judge, China Chow of Borg shows them how.

A bizarre medium

Real artists are not confined by such banalities as canvass and paint and brushes. Real artists invent their own medium. Like when you were five years old and made little soldiers out of dog poo on the lawn. Shame on your parents for beating that raw creative genius out of you.

Not quite dog poo, but obsessive compulsive Miles cobbles together morbid art from photocopies and plastic bags and takes the first win of the season.  Definitely one to watch.

A rich and famous benefactor

After all, how would anybody know that dreary mess is art if a famous actor does not declare it so? And who is more authoritative on what we  really like that Sarah Jessica Parker, Executive Producer of the show.

Ultimately too subjective to produce any real winners, the ticking clock, the over the top egos and the utterly bizarre concoctions stress drives these creative powerhouses to becomes the real source of our entertainment.   Probably quite demeaning and insulting to actual artists and the concept of art in general, but an unexpected joy for us plebs.

Work of Art: The Next Great Artist splashes onto your screen on Vuzu on Monday nights at 19h30.

It's like Project Runway, with less fake tan.

X Factor USA - Top 4 Results

Just in: pimp-tastic Marcus Canty has been arrested by the fashion police and voted off X Factor USA.

The top three remaining to compete in the finale this coming week are front runner Melanie Amaro, bluesy Josh Krajcik and the spastic robot homeboy with a heart, Chris Rene.

But who will walk away with the 5 million dollar prize?

Could it be the destitute bin man with the hungry child and the dead father, who is freshly out of rehab and a glorious beacon of hope and a homeboy all at the same time, reality television savant Chris Rene?

Or could it be the greasy thirty year old single father, with the creepy mother and the old-before-her-time teen daughter, who used to serve fast food and now haunts us with his unbelievable voice, Josh Krajcik?

It probably won't be Melanie Amaro.  Despite being the most talented contestant on a reality singing show in the past few years, her lack of personal tragedy and failure will probably be her downfall in the end.

The X Factor USA finale and results shows are airing on M-Net over the Christmas weekend.

(Unfortunately this is three days after the winner has been announced in America, so fans who would rather stay in the dark might have to go visit relatives in the Eastern Cape during that time.)

Glory Daze - Pilot

An American coming of age college comedy that is for the juvenile and sex starved only.

This junk was cancelled halfway through the first season.  Honestly, rather read a book.


Glory Daze airs during prime time on M-Net Series on Saturdays at 20h30. 

What were they thinking?

Things to ponder this Christmas - no.4

Hounded by an insubordinate employee, attacked in their own home and living in constant fear.

So how come we don't hear them threatening to emigrate?

Don't forget about American Horror Story on M-Net Series on Fridays at 22h30.

Breaking In - Pilot

If you are too lazy to watch a whole episode of Chuck, then Breaking In is for you.  Comedy action adventure meets The Office, crammed into 20 minutes.  It's slightly jarring to find a high concept show like Breaking In in such a short time slot, but it works.

Diminutive con man Cameron (Bret Harrison) is recruited against his will by the all knowing Oz (a delightfully hammy Christian Slater) to be the newest member of Contra Security. Contra is hired by top end clients to test their security very literally by staging break ins and reporting back.  A clever premise, it allows the team to be crooks and good guys all at the same time. 

If the work isn't dangerous enough, Cameron has to survive the attentions of his gifted and eccentric colleagues:  love interest and safe cracker Melanie (Odette Annable), sci-fi fan boy and prankster Cash (Alphonso McAuley) and super competitive and manipulative Josh (Trevor Moore).  The show abounds with geeky pop-culture references, from Han Solo outfits to Captain Kirk's chair, and is squarely aimed at the young adult male market.

Breaking In airs on M-Net on Fridays at 19h00.

Watch out for a guest appearance by Alyssa Milano in the next episode.

The Lying Game - Pilot

"How does it feel to be Sutton?"

Very loosely based on a series of books by the same name, The Lying Game is rich teen drama with a twist.  Identical twin sisters, Emma (Alexandra Chando)  and Sutton (yes, also Chando, but this time with hair and make-up) are abandoned and separated at birth.  Sutton hits the jackpot and is adopted by a rich family.  Emma bums out and ends up in foster care.  When her seriously skanky foster brother frames her for theft, she goes on the run and twin Sutton (who she apparently discovered just before the pilot) comes to the rescue.  Sutton proposes that Emma takes her place for a few days whilst she goes and looks for their biological mother.  Emma puts on  Sutton's expensive cloths, her hair and make-up transforms magically, and she becomes Sutton.

Playing Sutton turns out much tougher than Emma expected, mostly because she discovers that Sutton is a nasty  ungrateful piece of work, and Emma is not.  Sutton's friends and family are pleasantly surprised by the apparent change in attitude. Emma also starts realising that there is a lot more to Sutton than she could have imagined when strange things start to happen.  Uh oh, could someone be lying? Didn't see that coming, did you?  

It's all about 25 year old Chando  pretending to be a down-and-out teen, who is pretending to be a teen who drives a convertible BMW and hangs out by the pool in designer outfits. You could say it's poorly acted, but honestly, compared to hit teen shows like The OC this is probably Emmy material, so it doesn't really matter, does it?  Probably not the next hit teen drama, but an interesting and fun twist to the genre. 

The Lying Game airs on M-Net on Fridays at 20h30. 

More Monday night Vuzu than Friday night M-Net, this show might struggle to find its audience.

Miss South Africa Teen 2011

Are awkward wooden teenage girls in skimpy dresses your thing?

According to www.misssa.co.za :

"18 year old Celeste Khumalo from Sandton, Johannesburg was crowned Miss South Africa Teen on Saturday 10 December at the Sun City Superbowl, to the audience delight. (sic)

Celeste who recently completed matric is a well-liked young lady with an approachable demeanour, fresh face and has big dreams. Her ambition is to pursue a BA Degree in Corporate Communications and one day become a media Mogul.

This young lady enjoys hobbies like reading, dancing and socialising which keep her fit and busy."

Honestly, could they be funnier if they tried?



Miss  SA Teen 2011 aired on Vuzu on Thursday 15 December 2011 at 19h30

Come Dine With Me SA: Celebrity Edition

Only the brave or the stupid will cook and entertain with the Come Dine With Me cameras over their shoulders and fortunately for us, it is usually the latter.  Add some attention starved SA celebrities to the mix and it promises to be a kitchen disaster of epic proportions.  Sadly, it's not.

This particular format of Come Dine With Me follows four contestants, each hosting their own dinner party that is attended and scored by their competitors.  A tightrope act at the best of times, contestants have to manage making three exceptional courses and keeping their guests entertained, whilst maintaining enough likability to win the votes of their direct competitors.  Given differences in personal taste, rivalries and alcohol fuelled conflict, the outcome is sometimes quite random and unexpected.

Contestants are usually shamelessly selected based on their incompatibility and subjected to horrific social torture and personal humiliation for our viewing delight. Not least of which is the scathing trade mark running commentary of narrator Dave Lamb. Hilariously funny and often almost too painful to watch, Come Dine With Me is a reality television masterpiece.  Come Dine With Me SA has been particularly successful, proving once and for all that South Africans are not too dull and polite to make for good reality television.


Those are the real South Africans though, because despite all the press, this celebrity episode is a big let down.  The celebs in question are pretty ladies Shashi Naidoo and Ashley Hayden, and sports presenter Neil Andrews, who is dwarfed by the final contestant, made for radio Sam Cowen. Neil proves that not all celebrities know one another, even if they feel obliged to pretend that they do.

Sashi is sweet and likable and totally unfazed by Neil, acting like a complete idiot, spewing a slew of lame jokes that only celebrities can fake a laugh at.  She dishes up Asian inspired store bought food that is served up stylishly and she entertains effortlessly. Her mean chocolate mouse pushes her into an early lead.

Ashley plans an outrageously pretentious Italian menu, but proves to be quite the cook. She churns out chocolate cakes, frozen mousse, stuffed home made pasta rolls and an assortment of anti pasti and presents a faultless evening.

Neil brings up the rear with a menu that not even Shashi’s dog is interested in.  In true South African style, he makes a dessert with condensed milk. He roasts two chickens and serves a cold liquidised mess for a starter that Shashi struggles to keep down.  The best compliment the ladies can muster is that his food is nutritious, although his dessert surprises in the end.

Sam cheats shamelessly, marks Ashley’s stunning meal down and awards top marks to Neil’s amateurish slop.  When it’s her turn, she serves up a beige menu of homey chicken meat balls, pork fillet with nuts and some more condensed milk laden desserts. If only she spent as much time planning a proper menu as she clearly did plotting to bring down her competition...

Ultimately justice prevails: boring cook and cheat Sam comes a well deserved last, actually trumped by boorish Neil, who is in third place, ironically because Sam herself boosted his score. That's karma for you. Absolute sweetheart Shashi comes second and Ashley takes a deserving win.

Certainly the dullest episode of Come Dine With Me SA so far and a disappointing end to a brilliant season.  The celebrities mostly avoided the alcohol and expertly kept the bright side up.  Definitely not worth all the fuss, although it does make one wonder what on earth is up with us South Africans and the condensed milk.

Come Dine With Me SA concluded on Wednesday 14 December 2011 on BBC Entertainment at 21h00.

One Tree Hill - Season 8 Episode 1

OMG, it's a new season of OTH!! No, not Over The Hill, it's One Tree Hill. Named after the fictitious town where this pretty people drama plays out or the singular tree hardcore fans will probably eventually find themselves dangling from. You decide.

Pretty people have seldom had it this hard and for so long. Basically a die hard teen drama that had to adapt to ageing main characters, OTH is full of tragedy, love triangles and personal disasters, with a bit of cutesy family values on the side.  Last season ended on a cliffhanger.  Brooke got engaged and depressive Haley revealed that she is pregnant.  On the lighter side, Clay and Quinn were shot by Katie and left for dead.

In the season premiere, melodramatically entitled "Asleep at Heaven's Gate", Clay (Robert Buckley) awakes to find that the attempt on their lives was all a dream.  He is shirtless on a beach with Quinn.  (This is the season premiere after all and Robert Buckley without a shirt is normally like Miracle Grow for ratings. He looks a bit pale and flat this time around though.)  Once the shirtless contractual obligation is fulfilled, we realise that Clay was actually just dreaming that he had dreamt (keep up, people!) and he goes back to lying in the apartment with Quinn, dying from his bullet wound. Remarkably, by the end of the episode they have still not been discovered. Hang in there guys, better luck next week.

Haley seems to have finally overcome her depression and is adjusting to her pregnancy. The doctor says she's fine, but they have to run further tests (cue ominous music.)  The pregnancy and some poor parenting from Haley and Nathan prompts young Jamie to Google "lady rabbit sex". (If you haven't yet searched for this yourself, you can click here. Bizarrely, this search  actually leads to a One Tree Hill website. No wonder that little kid is so confused.)

In some more season premiere gratuity Brooke and Julian celebrate their engagement gratuitously.  But in true OTH style, the happiness is short lived, because Brooke gets arrested for accounting fraud and her business, Clothes Over Bros (yes, seriously) gets shut down. Believe it or not, Clay and Quinn are STILL lying dying whilst all of this is happening!

Setting up the love triangle for the season, Chase actually gets out from behind the bar and starts dating movie star Alex, but his ex, moody mannish Mia, decides she wants him back.

It's a perfect mix of vintage OTH: hardly a shirt in sight, random gratuity, some cutesy kid scenes and a whole new set of personal disasters and love triangles to overcome, all to the background of a suitably trendy soundtrack.  Real fans will appreciate the return of the opening titles and original theme song "I Don't Want To Be".  The rest of us will probably shake our heads in disbelief.

One Tree Hill airs on Vuzu on Tuesdays at 20h30.

What Nigella has in store for us

Okay, so maybe she is not the Antichrist, but she is definitely one of the Seven Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Or one of their horses at the very least.

It is Nigella Lawson, of course, faux chef and seductress extraordinaire. Although - and she would quickly tell you - she is much too pretentious to consider herself an actual chef.  She does after all handle a knife like a disturbed five year old, is too lazy to measure out ingredients or even peel an onion. In fact her only cheffy aspiration is her somewhat laughable claim of having asbestos hands.  In her role as culinary Delilah she is much more accomplished.  She might not seem capable of mixing more than three ingredients together over heat, but she certainly knows how to turn up that heat with skin tight dresses and seductive murmurs.  See, she can't just tell us that she is pouring that goopy batter into a baking tin. She has to huskily declare that she decants the luscious silky mix slowly onto the waiting baking tin, while she eagerly sucks some off a manicured nail, clearly more  intent on concocting suggestive puns than actual edible food. 

A charade from beginning to end, she serves up lazy, insipid  and frequently rancid looking creations to an eager (or perhaps nervous?) mix of politically correct "friends" like she is unveiling monumental culinary revelations, and with such condescension, you would think she is feeding little children or the family dog.  The crowning achievement of each episode is a bizarrely re-enacted midnight feast  where she traipses around a darkened kitchen (set) with red back lighting - reminiscent of a certain district in Amsterdam - her ample bosom barely contained in her night gown.

This festive season Nigella is all over our screens again, dishing up bulging Christmas treats oozing with sticky sauces.  Watch her in Nigella Kitchen on Wednesday, 14 December 2011 at 20h25 on BCC Lifestyle serving up her self titled slut's spaghetti, or on  Sunday 18 December 2011 at 18h00 in Nigella's Christmas Kitchen where she promises to show us how to whip a pavlova into mountainous peaks.

Nigella is married to multi millionaire Charles Saatchi.  He reportedly refuses to eat any of her food and survives on a diet of cereal and boiled eggs, which she is not allowed to touch.

South Park

Preachy social commentary has never been so delightfully offensive.  Ever since Madonna donned her cone bra and stirred up a religious froth with her music video for "Like A Virgin", the sensitivity of the general public has been in steady decline to the point where the violent and obscene have become, if not common place, at least tolerable.  Even so, the 16th season of South Park still manages to push the envelope of what is acceptable to be beamed to your small screen.

Frequently misunderstood as being offensive purely for the sake of being offensive, as its core South Park has always been surprisingly preachy, delivering a message of tolerance and moderation.  Aimed exclusively at adults, the events are usually viewed through the eyes of four foul mouthed and very self aware eight year olds.  Whilst the stories are patently outrageous - featuring religious figures as super heroes or jolly singing feces - the adults are without fail ignorant and narrow minded and it is usually left to the young boys and their friends to save the day and deliver a very relevant little lesson in the process.

Whilst Comedy Central did broadcast the 15th season of South Park on Sunday nights, they have now switched back to season 13, instead of continuing with season 16 which is currently being broadcast in America.  South Park Season 13 currently airs on Comedy Central on Sundays at 21h45.  Earlier seasons are broadcast late night on a daily basis.



FAN FACT:  Watch out for those aliens! Ever since Cartman got abducted and probed by aliens in the pilot episode 16 years ago, an alien observer has been hidden in every single episode.  In fact, there is even one hidden on this page!

Things to ponder this Christmas - no.3

It's the time of the year for culinary excess.  So when those patronising celebrity chefs start flogging their family members instead of recipes, you have to wonder if they are starting to run out of ideas.

(Seriously though, would anybody actually eat anything that lisping menace has spat over?)


Jamie's Family Christmas airs on BBC Lifestyle on Sundays at 19h00

X Factor USA - Top 5 Results

Beauty may be skin deep, but Nicole Scherzinger has shown us that ugly is to the bone. After tonight's show, even the doubters have to admit that she is pretty awful. Public enemy number 1 in fact. She is after all the reason poor Rachel Crow was sent home in tears in tonight's shock elimination.

A quick recap for those that missed the show. After guest appearances from Lenny Krawitz and Mary J Blige, Marcus Canty and Rachel Crow were left in the bottom two.  Both chose old favourites as their save me songs:  Marcus with "I'm Going Down" and Rachel with "I'd Rather Go Blind".  LA Reid voted for his own, perennial bottom dweller Marcus.  Simon and Paula voted for Rachel. And rightly so. She may have had one bad song the the night before, but has consistently been streets ahead of the smooth moving but vocally insipid Marcus Canty and completely outsang him in the sing off.  Woe be unto me Nicole was tearful from the get go.  Claiming that she could not decide and would rather let the public votes count, she chickened out and voted for Marcus, sending the judges' vote into deadlock. Steve called for the results of the public vote and revealed that Rachel was to go home.  Poor Rachel sat down in shock and started bawling like a thirteen year old, calling for her mommy.  Nicole started bawling even louder and running around the stage like it was her own elimination.  Which, let's face it, it probably was. After the show, she was apparently also booed off the stage and proceeded to lock herself in her dressing room.

Initially the glitzy replacement for the too heavily accented Cheryl Cole, Nicole Scherzinger very quickly showed us that underneath that thin veneer of gorgeous was a whole lot of nasty.  Petty, insecure and downright bitchy, she did not translate onto the small screen at all.  Her blatantly insincere attempts at pretending to have heart made it even worse.  Stories about her charges claiming complete creative absence from her side abounded. Which is of course the same inactivity that resulted in the elimination of the young sweetheart of the show, Rachel Crow.

 

Yes, Rachel would mostly likely not have won, but having her go home at the hands of Scherzinger is just almost too good to be true.  Personally, I'm all for gathering mobs and burning Scherzinger memorabilia.  I'll eat my remote if that phony self centred horror is back next season.