I was very excited when I heard about "On the Lot," the FOX reality show which initially had Spielberg's name all over it. Now you rarely hear his name associated with the show. Do you suppose he decided to watch one of the early episodes? Although the show has improved, it still seems like the producers opened a few bottles of wine and took turns drawing reality show cliches out of a hat. Here is what they wound up with, forced to make a show out of it: 1. On camera spokesmodel. I think they cast Adrianna Costa from her headshot only. However her ability to read cue cards has improved. And her wardrobe is fine with me. 2. American Idol style judges. Seasoned pro - gives the final word (Simon Cowell/Garry Marshall); Once great star - says nice things no matter what (Paula Abdul/Carrie Fisher - granted Carrie Fisher knows what she is talking about but she can be too nice); Guest judge (whomever is available - Antoine Fuqua and Michael Bay give some good advice, Brett Rattner and some of the others don't have much to say). 3. Weekly challenge. The first few episodes were rather disjointed, and need no further criticism than to say read the message boards on the show's website. Now that we have eliminated most of the early contenders (was it their submission films that were voted on? It was hard to tell what exactly was being shown) the finalists are actually making real short films with full crews and actors. 4. Behind the scenes documentaries. There was an article in Studio Monthly's e-mail newsletter about using XDCAM to shoot lots of footage for the mini-docs for the behind the scenes each week. Seems a bit extreme, since they only show about 30 seconds for each filmmaker. 5. Contestants live together in a house. It is difficult to tell if they are in a house or somewhere on the Universal backlot. All we see is the elimination scene, with typical drawn-out fake suspense and dramatic music, while the contestants sit around on lawn furniture in some kind of a patio setting. Maybe this is outside the studio, and they actually live in hotel rooms. Who knows. 6. Overly-dramatic elimination scene. The first few weeks the hostess eliminated people in a seemingly random fashion. Now they do it in the one show they have to work with, which seems to be taped the day after the previous week's show. Again, we are not given much to go on here. 7. Obvious winner identified by judges and audience early in season. On American Idol you can usually figure out who the real contenders are. The judges do not hide their enthusiasm for a few of the contestants. On this show, there is a kid from Canada named Zack who is a special effects wiz, and his films have been amazing. If he is eliminated before the final 3 I will be surprised. As for the rest of the contenders, it is tough to call. They all have quirks, but from week to week not everyone competes and the genres change, so it is not a well-balanced competition. 8. Flashy live audience set. The plush velvety theater serves as the studio audience chamber for the weekly show. It looks nice, does not have any flashy lights and is tasteful. There is a cool setup on the stage. Plasma screens are embedded in the stage. As each film is introduced, the camera cranes over the stage screens so we can see the title of the film. 9. Catchy theme song. Sorry, they missed the boat on this one. They attempted to have a cinematic theme song with horns and strings, but it sounds like the Daytime Emmy Awards. I don't know, maybe that's what they were looking for. 10. Website community. Thanks to YouTube and MySpace, every website created from now until the end of time will have message boards, blogs and user submitted videos. There are some good and not so good examples of each, as on YouTube and MySpace. Given all of these Reality Show cliches, the show comes together better than when it first started. However they might want to eliminate or change some of these elements. I think they could borrow from American Idol in the following way: Introduce the guest judge at the beginning of each show, then have a 1 minute segment where the guest judge reads the contestant's screenplay and they have a little one on one session for advice and feedback, befoe the short film begins production. Another thing that would help is to get a new host. While the current host has improved, and honestly it doesn't matter who hosts because we can use TiVo to skip to the films anyway, why not have Carrie Fisher host? Then you could get R2-D2 as a permanent judge. I can dig that! Seriously, I give FOX and Spielberg credit for their efforts, but On the Lot overall is a disappointment. Thanks for reading. Mike Cohen | 
