SERIES PREMIERE:
This is not a recommendation. It’s worth noting, though, how eagerly and heavily ABC has hitched itself to the game-show wagon this summer, presumably under the theory that reality TV is fading at last, at least a bit, and ABC is in search of another equally cheap and potentially, inexplicably popular programming form. Tonight alone, ABC hedges its bets by doing both. At 8 p.m. ET, it premieres
Boy Band, a musical competition show that aims to assemble a made-for-TV boy band. (Hey, hey, they’re not the Monkees.) And at 10 p.m. ET, Mike Myers pretends to embody a fictitious British TV personality named Tommy Maitland, in much the same crazily committed way that Martin Short occasionally portrays overweight, under-informed show-biz interviewer Jiminy Glick. Myers, a.k.a. Maitland, is replacing Chuck Barris, the super-smarmy host and creator of the original
Gong Show, and reviving this program – even with Will Arnett as an executive producer – is by no means a measure of TV progress.
For a full review, see Ed Bark's Uncle Barky's Bytes.