The One: Making a Music Star

Reality television has come of age. Shows that were once wildly popular — like Temptation Island, Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire and I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here — would not get past the first pitch meeting now. In fact, television audiences and networks are quick to turn their backs on bad reality television (as they did with Tuesday Night Book Club and Welcome to the Neighborhood.) Viewers may not demand sophistication, but they do demand something compelling.

This is the landscape upon which The One: Making a Music Star has descended. As the title indicates, the show is another singing talent competition. The advertised twist is that the show follows the contestants behind the scenes as they live together and train together at "The Academy," a music school and studio created for the purposes of the competition.

Here is what you already know: there is a group of contestants, three judges, 1-800 and text voting, a bottom three, flashing blue lights coming in from commercial and songs that are at least twenty years old. Here is what is "new": viewers (referred to as "America," as is usual in reality TV-land) vote only to determine the bottom three contestants. From there, the judges vote to save one of the remaining three from elimination and the remaining contestants themselves vote to make the final cut. (Cue dramatic interpersonal tension.)

Another thing you already know: a reality show's premise, format, rules and (in this case) talent, are not what make it popular. Millions of people do not tune in each week to watch Project Runway because they care about fashion; no one watches The Biggest Loser to learn how to lose weight. "America" watches reality TV because it craves complex, flawed and human characters. "America" is drawn to interesting people shown in interesting ways — not fabrics, dress sizes or pound counts.

In theory, The One is attuned to this desire. In reinventing the American Idol format with more behind-the-scenes content, it promises to offer viewers something more than just singing in and out of tune. In The One's "Academy" viewers should see not only the discovery of a star, but the creation of one: contestants rehearsing backstage, making missteps, experiencing stage-fright, being molded into great performers, finding their own ways to shine in the cut-throat entertainment industry. This is the fascinating back-story of every singing competition; The One promises to bring it all out front.

However, so far, The One is failing to live up to its potential. Instead of a back-stage drama, we get short clips of canned dialogue. Instead of seeing the contestants struggle to learn, develop and grow, we hear summaries from the judges. Instead of the stuff of star-making, we get the same vignettes of pre-packaged montage as offered on American Idol — only with even worse production and even less appealing judges (if you can imagine such a thing.)

In addition, the contestants themselves are not the raw, musical novices that would need time at an "Academy" in the first place. Instead, they are a collection of VH1-ready twenty-somethings: a few John Mayers, a Jack Johnson, a Lauryn Hill, a Natasha Bedingfield and a Pussycat Doll. Though they are repeatedly described as "soulful," not one seems to have an actual soul. Rather, they all seem to be graduates of the Hollywood machine — each a prefabricated and marketable mini-star in his or her own right. This might make the singing better, but it saps the series of any dramatic potential. These are not sweet kids who find themselves overwhelmed by the experience. These are sweet adults that have been preparing themselves for reality TV since learning the name Kelly Clarkson.

Certainly this soullessness will change somewhat over the next ten weeks. Someone will make a racist, sexist or otherwise offensive remark, as they always do. There will be a major disclosure by one of the cast, as there always is, and the relationships (like the already brewing one between Aubrey and Nick) will cause all the problems every reality show romance does. But so what? All of this has been seen before, and will be seen again, but there is nothing about the premiere of The One to indicate it will be shown in a new or compelling light. Viewers can expect another group of 23 year-olds positioning themselves for TRL appearances. Nothing more.

Reality television is a success because of the human connection, good or bad, that viewers feel as they watch. At its very best, producers step back, don't over-produce and let things unfold. If "The One" hopes to gain and maintain an audience, the producers had better loosen the reins, and based on first episode ratings, they better do it quickly — the age where anything "reality" is an automatic hit has long since passed.

— Patrick Quirk (pquirk@gmail.com)