I used to watch pretty regularly during seasons 2 and 3. Then I stopped. Because, for the most part, I stopped caring. Now, I only enjoy watching the sideshow audition shows that kick the season off in January. Once they hit Hollywood, I’m out of there.

But I did watch the finale.

That show last night was Exhibit A as to why I don’t watch anymore. It was the results show. Everyone wants to see who wins. It’s literally a 5 minte show that they streeeeeetch into a 2 hour infomercial extravaganza. Everything is an ad - Coke product placement, AT&T product placement, Mike Myers douching it up for his new movie, Jonas Brothers and a somewhat sad-looking and sounding George Michael promoting summer tours. There’s the 12 Idol finalists basically doing the bits they’ll do during the summer tour. There’s Bryan Adams who’s hawking a new CD that no one really cares about. There’s Carrie Underwood who, as a WaPo columnist put it,

dressed as a Wimbledon streetwalker with a hammock slung between her arms, singing her newest tune about hopping into the sack with a random guy and waking up married to him so she doesn’t even know her new “Last Name.”

A half-hour show would have been plenty. A one-hour show, I could have understood. But two solid hours of promotion? I don’t sit through infomercials for scam artist Kevin Trudeau, so it pained me to sit through this marketing-fest.

And that’s why, come next year, I’ll sit through the audition shows and then drop out when they reach Hollywood. Because it’s a show that is already somewhat of an insult to one’s intelligence. They don’t have to pile on.

You know how when you’re a kid and you’re a fan of someone or something, you dream of someday meeting them, working with them, hanging out with them? Well, if there was one person in show business I would love to work with - in however small a capacity - more than anyone else, it would be Ricky Gervais. From his masterpiece The Office, to the brilliant Extras, or even the fantastically funny podcasts, he has that distinctly British combination of brains and humor that make most American expletive-hucking comics look like dribbling morons by comparison.

Last night, HBO aired the series finale / Christmas special of Extras. Caution - spoilers ahead. Read the rest of this entry »