The Search for the Next Pussycat Doll: Eureka
Finally—A Stripper Show on Broadcast TV
It’s clear that The CW’s latest reality offering, Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll, is tailored to a very distinct type of audience when, early in the premiere episode, one of the young auditioners looks sincerely at Robin Antin and states that the choreographer is her icon. Apparently, the impact of the burlesque-inspired Pussycat Dolls—the super successful, all-female, multiethnic pop-music group that Antin formed and choreographs—extends far and wide among certain sets. Older and/or less trendy people may not be inclined to concede the relevance of the act, but the members undoubtedly have an enormous and devoted following.
No matter what your hipness quotient, however, the first leg (no pun intended) of the Pussycat Dolls’ search is severely underwhelming, even by the mediocre standards that seem to inform so many of the hastily developed reality series appearing on the tube of late. One major drawback is the show’s rushed feeling, resulting from its failure to provide any type of substantive preliminary audition material. The initial barrage of young women magically winnows down to the eighteen who appear throughout the rest of the pilot. The survivors are then separated into three groups of six, each supplied with a different Pussycat Doll song to learn and rehearse, along with an accompanying dance routine. As the competitors stand around a piano to sing for the music director and practice their moves with the co-choreographer in a dance studio, they offer a steady din of alternatively catty, whiny, and self-involved commentary about their experiences.
The second episode is no better and perhaps even worse during one dinner segment that features the contestants in their first safety challenge, designed to give the winner immunity from selection in the next elimination round. Allegedly to reveal their level of confidence, the women are instructed to dance for other patrons like dive-bar strippers, while wearing racy lingerie in the restaurant’s showcase windows. It doesn’t matter how many times the show attempts to clarify the difference between empowering, classy sexiness and trashy, smutty sexiness, if a female dresses like a slut and dances like a slut, then some people will understandably assume she’s a slut.
With so many music- and dance-focused reality competitions to watch on television these days, new entrants have to provide something truly unique to stand out from the crowd. The Search for the Next Pussycat Doll does no such thing, which indicates several potential factors underlying the high ratings it managed to accumulate on its first outing: (1) only Fox aired a fresh episode of a popular series opposite it—viewers just erroneously believed that nothing else was on; (2) the novelty aspect—people just wanted to see what the show was all about; (3) the abundance of scantily clad young women vamping to beat-heavy music—men just wanted to see how good they looked; and (4) the large number of Pussycat Doll fans in the population—little girls just wanted the opportunity to daydream about becoming a sexy starlet one day.
Those traits obviously have nothing to do with the quality of a show, yet everything to do with the magnitude of the ratings. How fortunate for the series, since it’s a markedly trite and low-rent alternative among the glut of reality TV shows available today. On that note, I did unintentionally develop a couple of favorites as I sampled the first two episodes—Sisely, a mature and pragmatic 25-year-old California punk rocker, in the first and Chelsea, a 20-year-old, hard-working, sweet-natured, formerly overweight Floridian, in the second. The earlier that each participant is forced to “hang up her boa,” the more vindicated I’ll feel for not having bothered to watch The Search for the Next Pussycat Doll past installment Number Two.
The Verdict: D
Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll currently airs Tuesdays on The CW at 9pm EST, with same-week repeats the following Sunday at 7pm EST
Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll photo courtesy of The CW
