On the Lot...take two

We confess, we watched it again. We thought the odd 35-minute running time would work in its favor. It didn't. On the Lot still sucks. But it sucks in an oddly compelling way. We loved that Garry Marshall was so disgusted by the first day of the competition that he ducked out before day two. In his place, they dug up the guy who directed Fried Green Tomatoes. Don't worry, he replicated Marshall's smugness nicely.

This episode was more a continuation of the premiere than its own separate installment. Basically, they trimmed more fat from their inexplicable roster of 50 contestants. They're down to 24 now, with the fat bully, the annoying emo girl and some guys who couldn't produce a cohesive narrative exiting the stage. Some of the short films - made in 24 hours - were actually pretty impressive. Especially the one where the special effects seemed to freeze all the elements in the frame except the principal actors. We don't remember the names of any of these films, nor the names of any of the contestants, namely because this show is the biggest clusterfuck in the history of reality television. There's so much going on and so little backstory, character development, or anything interesting outside the actual process of filmmaking.

In short, to watch this show you have to be a movie nut who finds the process of writing, shooting, and cutting films thrilling. There aren't many people like that out there, as evidenced by the first episode's dismal ratings. Fox is airing another installment on Monday. That's three in six days. We don't know about you, but we're not sure any show that's not a soap opera should have that many new episodes in that short a period of time. But like we should talk, when we can't even finish that spec script.