So You Think You Can Host?

Now that I picked up a few new readers searching for “Gilmore Girls,” I’ve decided to suck up to them and write some more about television.

I have so many things to do before I go to New York that I ended up doing none of them tonight. I spent the evening with Sophia, watching the stupidest shows on TV. I literally think I lost 3% of my brain cells tonight.

Can it get any worse that watching Britney Spears being interviewed on Dateline?

Yes, it can. It is the show, “So, You Think You Can Dance?”

“So, You Think You Can Dance?” is presented by the same production company that makes “American Idol.” It is a dance competition, rather than a singing competition.

Now, I’ll tell you right here. I’m not a snob about these types of shows. “American Idol” is one of my favorite shows. I honestly mean that. I love variety shows. They were a staple of my childhood (Donny and Marie, etc.).

But “So, You Think You Can Dance?” is just bad. Even the title is too long. The judges are boring. The format is clunky. And the hosts make Ryan Seacrest seem like a genius.

Last year, the host was Lauren Sanchez. Viewers from Los Angeles already knew her as a friendly, but dim-witted, local news anchor. But, being a politically-correct type of guy, I was glad to see a “Latina” hostess of a prime-time show, even if this Latina had a little too much of “la rinoplastia.”

This year the hostess is Cat Deeley, a British “TV presenter” and a media sex symbol in the U.K.

She is probably the worst TV hostess I’ve ever seen — and I have watched A LOT of television. Whatever happened to the land of Laurence Olivier and Dame Judi Dench? She is as stiff as a board and can hardly read the cue cards. During the middle of the show, Sophia almost choked on the “smoothie” she was drinking.

“Do you see that?” she screamed. “She’s pulling her NAILS! The hostess is pulling her nails on national television!”

Our Tivo cut off the last minute of the show, so we never found out which male dancer was “eliminated.”

“Have no fear,” I told Sophia. “I’m an expert in searching on Google.”

I quickly went onto the show’s website, where they have a fan forum. On the poorly designed forum (c’mon, FOX!), everyone was angry because Stanislav, one of the best dancers, was cut from the show. I told Sophia the bad news.

“This show stinks,” said Sophia.

But what interested me most about the comments was all the hate focused on the host, Cat Deely. People HATED her. They hated everything about her. The way she looked. The way she spoke. The way she had no chemistry with the dancers. Granted, most of the writers on this forum seemed to be fifteen years old girls — but they all seemed to be right on.

I finally found a comment explaining why Lauren Sanchez was absent from the show this year. Apparently, she is pregnant.

Now, I have no idea whether this decision was her own or the producers, but it did get me thinking about pregnancy on TV. Would it really bother viewers to have a pregnant hostess of a dance competition? I mean, it’s not like she’s doing any heavy lifting. She’s standing there reading from cue cards. I would hope we have advanced to the point where if they made “I Love Lucy” today, Lucille Ball wouldn’t have to hide behind the couch. Would it bother you to see a pregnant TV host?