'On the Lot' Not so Hot

Thursday, May 24, 2007 -

The second episode of new Fox reality series On the Lot will air tonight, I think around 9:30 or 9:35PM EDT. As I wrote about the other day, I missed half the premier due to my DirecTV satellite receiver getting confused and thinking a good time to power down would be right in middle of a DVR recording. What I got to see was enough to load up on an 1800 word feature, and actually it was pretty good.

I lost the recording just about half way through, after only a few people had done their pitches for the judges and long before anybody of the initial 50 had been eliminated, and I don't have the foggiest clue what happened after that point.

Luckily for you, if you missed it as I did, there are reviews kicking around for you to read, and bad ratings news: On the Lot didn't even come close to retaining the lead-in audience from the American Idol finale. Now some of that is to be expected, House can't hold the entire lead-in audience either, though it comes pretty darn close.

A new show isn't going to do well because it's new, and nothing will look spectacular coming after Idol's 27 million viewers get their fix and head off to bed. Variety notes that while it hurt, it's not like this will be a regular occurrence. Lot's regular slot is on Monday, not where it debuted on Tuesday or the follow-up tonight. I see why they slotted it after Idol, to get people interested, but not why it's on again tonight.

You can read Variety's actual review of the show, or hit up IGN's which is the source of the quote below.

After watching the first episode of Fox's new On the Lot one conclusion becomes apparent. While the idea of a reality series about filmmaking is interesting, and could be worth watching (like, say Project Greenlight), this really isn't that series. Not yet anyway. The only way you'd know this was about filmmaking was because the show continually tells you it is. From what we've seen so far, getting knocked from the contest and moving beyond this bizarre enterprise might be the best thing to happen to any of the contestants.

I said as much in my feature on it, so you'll probably see very similar themes. But as I'm trying to learn as time goes on, you need to give shows a little time to develop. I just hope Fox doesn't nuke it before the contest ends like it does every other low rated show.

Topics: Film, Feature, On The Lot, Steven Spielberg, Brett Ratner

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