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undeserving of a first
NBC reality stinker: Are they kidding or what?
By Adelle Waldman
In the months leading up to NBC's "Second Chance: America's Most Talented Senior" yesterday, there was a great deal of talk about the show, an "American Idol"-inspired contest for the 50-plus set, but it was never clear whether the network intended it to honor and appeal to seniors or to make fun of them.
If the former was the network's true aim, then NBC would have been smarter to revive such a popular show as CBS's "Murder She Wrote," which was killed just because its audience was graying at the temples, or simply to stop pandering shamelessly and exclusively to the under-40 crowd in its comedies and dramas.
If, on the other hand, the effect NBC was going for was to get laughs at the expense of the 10 seniors featured on the show -- and at the idea of old fogeys performing at all -- then the network clearly miscalculated.
The suits in charge obviously don't understand how our youth culture works. It is self-centered rather than mean-spirited. The culture is too little interested in seniors to go out of its way to make fun of them; it prefers to ignore them entirely.
Whatever its backers hoped for the show, "Second Chance" succeeds only in mimicking the tastelessness of such runaway hits as "Idol" and "The Bachelor" without offering up any of their snide wit and naked human drama.
Hosted by Mario Lopez of the 1990s teen sitcom "Saved by the Bell," "Second Chance" trots out seniors it discovered at auditions around the country, many of which took place in such retiree-heavy states as Florida and Arizona. They sing, dance and play instruments-- and, in the case of one 69-year-old grandmother, rap -- for a panel of three judges: Estelle Harris, who played George Costanza's mother on "Seinfeld," Barry Williams of "The Brady Bunch" and Shirley Jones of "The Partridge Family" and innumerable other less-than-memorable movies and television shows.
The winner receives $25,000. A more fun contest would have been an "Idol"-style audience vote on who seemed dumber -- host Lopez or the judges.
Lopez's finest moment came when he said to the evening's oldest performer, 82-year-old Christine Gentry, who had just finished playing a number on the piano, "Very impressive, young lady," and then grinned impishly into the camera, as if awaiting applause for his droll humor.
The judges voiced their saccharine opinions of the performers only once, and that was one time too many. After Shirley Jones's unaccountable enthusiasm -- "Everyone of them has been unbelievable!" -- Estelle Harris' comment that though "I don't like rock," one performer "made me mo-ove" seemed like the words of a penetrating wit.
The most tasteless part of the show involved an 80-year-old woman from Memphis named Cordell Jackson, who played a classic rock-style tune she wrote herself on an electric guitar. The quality of the song was such that you suspect she made it on the show for no reason other than the shock effect: Jackson is an oh-so-grandmotherly woman and she was wearing an old-fashioned floral dress with big, poofy sleeves, which contrasted sharply with her bright red guitar.
As she played, Jackson wore an expression that would have been described as Zen-like on Dylan or Hendrix, but conjured up thoughts of Alzheimer's on Jackson. It was affecting until the moment when Lopez spoke to her. She answered so lucidly, you couldn't help wonder whether the outfit and the expression were props of a cheap ploy -- meant to garner the sympathy vote and reinforce the absurdity of such a dowager strumming classic rock on an electric guitar.
In this context, such garden-variety tacky acts as those by second-place contestant Lambus Dean who crooned "Oh, What a Night," and winner Al Raitano, who did Joe Cocker's "You Can Leave Your Hat On" and did indeed seem to have missed his calling as a slightly slimy Vegas lounge singer, were a deep relief.
Putting Jackson on at the beginning was probably among the few smart decisions made in the hatching of this dud.
In defense of the folks at NBC, let it be known that they realized their error in advance of last night's debut. Though the show was originally billed as a new reality series, it has been downgraded to the level of special -- with no mention of a reprisal of last night's dreary contest.
June 2, 2003© 2003 Media Life
Adelle Waldman is a Baltimore writer. This is her first piece for Media Life.
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