The Search For The Next Doll

Last night was the season finale of the show "The Search For The Next Doll". It's a show similar to Australian Idol where they try to find another singer/dancer for the new girl group The Pussycat Dolls. However, The Search For The Next Doll is even more low-brow than Idol and should be classified as a comedy rather than a reality TV show. It was one of the funniest shows I tape and watch each week.

The thing that made the show great was how seriously everyone involved in it was taking it, when it was clearly a fairy floss show with no substance at all. Before the show had even begun, the producer had come out and said that the show was a push for "girlpower and empowering women". Also, the show was helping to drive the feminist movement. Is this guy on drugs or something? For those that haven't watched the show, its young girls dressing up and putting on as much make up as possible to look like a stripper and then do stripper like moves on stage while singing (rather badly) for a chance to join a girl group that also danced like strippers and had only one notable lead singer. Why the group needs a 4th (or is it 5th or 6th, there's so many of them and I don't know any of their names) dance to dance behind lead singer (and only talented one) Nicole is a mystery. But hey, anything nowadays gets made into a reality show.

Each week, the girls are given ass-ignments to do. The first few weeks involved tasks such as "finding your inner sexiness", "finding your personality" and "expressing your own style". This always involved dressing up like strippers and then doing sexy dance moves, which usually involved some ass shaking and a pole. At the end of each week, creator Robin Antin, music exec Ron Fair and acoording to host Mark McGrath, "one of the most successful female artists of all time" (really?, how many Lil Kim songs can you name?) Lil Kim, would rate the girls. One girl would get eliminated and hang up her pink boa.

So this elimination went on for 8 weeks. Each week there were so many catfights and backstabbing and immature tantrum fits, it was like 2 year olds in the playground, minus the backstabbing part. The catfights and backstabbing was as good as any scripted dramas like Melrose Place. There were so many slanging matches from "You dance like a transexual" to "Don't f**ken talk to me you stupid b**ch". Classic. There was also so many tears when the girls would feel they were not getting the dance routine, couldn't sing the song, were getting tired, felt like no one was supporting them, felt like the other girls were attacking them or were feeling fat. The fact that they were all size 6 but still there was quite a few episodes of "I'm feeling so fat". There wasn't much "girlpower" being displayed each week.

The side characters in the show, creator Robin Antin, choreography Mickey Minchin, vocal coach Eric Dawkins and the music producer whose name I can't remember also provided some comedy gold. Robin Antin would act like mother hen sometimes and reassure the girls while other times she would be queen bee and yell at them for not "finding their inner doll". Whatever that means, but that terms came up more times than one could laugh at. Vocal coach Eric provided a few gems too, such as when he compared one of the girls singing to nails on a chalkboard (a fair assessment I thought) but it was Mickey Minchin who would steal the show. He could not be more stereotypically gay. He could turn the gay factor up to 11. He would yell at one particular girl, Chelsea, so often for not getting the dances moves. "You have to bend lower and stick out your ass more. Then you have to pump those fists and snap them down." He would then do an example and show us his best stripper moves. Totally hilarious. So he would totally ridicule the girls all the time. Such great support in your quest to make it into the world of music, or stripping.

Finally, when it got down to three, we got the season's biggest catfight of all time. The swearing and vengeance that came out of the two girls, Asia and Melissa, was totally unbelievable. They would normally act so nice but man they could swear and be so crude when they wanted. Then the next day they had to perform a song together and were hugging again. Wow women can turn around really quick. So after all their dances and singing, the winner was announced, it was Asia since she really could "express her innner doll" on stage.

And what was Asia's prize for winning, well she got to immediately join The Pussycat Dolls on stage and sing a song. So I was expecting Asia to get to sing lead vocals and be centre stage after she had just won this show. Right? Wrong! Instead, Asia was on the far left stage dancing along with the other 4 (5 or 6) dancers behind Nicole who was the focus of the cameras while she sang the song. What's the point of the supposed "nationwide" search which produced so few actual singers and so much empthasis on dancing for another girl to join the group. How many more people do you need to do no singing and dance behind Nicole. When we listen to a CD, we don't see any of those other group members. And when they do shows, they can hire professional dancers.

Anyway, despite the seemingly pointless nature of the show, it was great TV entertainment, whether they meant it or not. I suspect not. They were really taking it so seriously but the rest of the viewing audience was just laughing at them and not with them. It was pure comedy gold. Bring on the next series.