What was on TV? Tues, March 22, 2005

20 years ago, texting was so new that Ryan Seacrest had to explain how it worked. Let's see what was on TV.

8:00 American Idol on Fox

4x22 "Top 11 Perform"

This is the episode where Carrie Underwood doused herself in hairspray and slayed her cover of '80s power ballad "Alone." Simon predicted that not only would she win, but she would sell more records than any other contestant. This prediction carried real weight, since Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" was in the middle of its epic 20-week run in the top 10 on the pop charts. American Idol had finally proven it could create a true A-list recording artist, and Simon was predicting that she would join those ranks. He was right: Underwood has still sold more records than any other Idol contestant, even Kelly. She was and is a truly phenomenal success. Her talent was and is real, and she's so good at playing to the mainstream and not offending anyone that when she decided to play at Trump's second inauguration, it felt like a truly significant moment. If Carrie Underwood thought playing at Trump's inauguration was a good bet, that meant the culture had truly shifted.

I honestly don't like Simon very much, he's mean but not very witty or entertaining. But he does have very good commercial instincts, and he proved that here. Perhaps he recognized a kindred spirit in Carrie.

9:00 Project Greenlight on Bravo

3x02 "The Joy of Pre-Production" (record The Starlet on the WB)

A truly excellent episode of reality television. The team did well in picking John Gulager to direct this season's movie, he is a superb protagonist and emerges as a complex and likable but also slippery character in this episode.

As the episode opens, it seems like he's a total pushover. Everyone is walking all over him: the studio, the producers, the writers, the creature effects designer, everyone. He seems completely unable to assert himself or argue for his vision. And then we get to casting, and you see that this guy is a fighter. At first, it seems like the same old John, and you wonder how he will ever direct a movie or convince anyone to do anything. But then you realize what's going on: he just wants to cast his family and friends. He's not trying on purpose! It's passive-aggressive as hell and proves a very effective tactic. Whenever the poor casting director tries to reason with him or compromise, he just digs his heels in, and he's so mild-mannered that he leaves everyone at a loss for words.

You understand that casting the entire movie with your family is a bad idea. But you also understand where he's coming from! Gulager is very open about the fact that he has relied on these people for years. His Dad has literally been paying his rent! Nepotism is a dirty word in this day and age, but when people talk about nepotism what they're really mad about is institutional privilege and generational wealth. This is something different. This is a guy who has spent years grinding it out in the bottom rungs of Hollywood, but it hasn't been so bad because he's had company and help. Now that he's gotten a lucky break, he wants to bring the people who helped him along for the ride. It's admirable.

Of course, it's also stupid and annoying! Some of the people he wants to hire are good. His dad is a legit character actor, and his brother has real chops too. But he also wants to cast his goddaughter who started acting about a year ago, and she looks like she started acting about a year ago. And the casting director brings in real names! A young Jon Bernthal is there, already oozing charisma. Later the casting director mentions that Ben Foster came in to read and Gulager shoots him right down!

And it's not just Gulager sabotaging himself. This is a guy who has real power for the first time in a long time, and who doesn't grasp that he has the power to hurt people. I felt so bad for the casting director in this episode. She had mostly worked as an assistant to Joseph Middleton, the casting director for the last two seasons. But Middleton was busy being a judge on ANTM for actresses reality show The Starlet, so she stepped in. She seems eager to prove herself but she's stuck with this guy who's impossible to work with. The episode ends with her trying to reason with him, pointing out that she works for him. And he says no, she works for Dimension, the studio. They're both right, which is exactly what makes this so hard.

10:00 The Shield

4x02 "Grave"

Glenn Close got all the press, but this episode also features Anthony Anderson, Michael Pena, and Katey Sagal. Holy crap! The Shield's ensemble is a little more uneven than other prestige dramas of the period. This is not Deadwood where even tiny parts are played by highly skilled and trained actors at the top of their game. The team took a bit of a John Gulager approach to casting, hiring lots of family and friends. The results are a little uneven. Sometimes I wish the actor was better. But Shawn Ryan fought for Walton Goggins when FX wanted to get rid of him, which paid off big time for everyone involved. And while I wasn't a fan of Ryan's friend Kenneth Johnson as Lem or of his own wife as Vic Mackey's wife early on, they've both really grown on me. And Katey Sagal is probably only here because she's writer Kurt Sutter's wife. She plays a pretty standard wife part here (I wonder if she was a last-minute replacement or something). But she brings so much anger and pathos to the role, and she wasn't getting dramatic roles like this at the time, she was still thought of a sitcom actress. There's something to be said for nepotism.

And yet, it's nice to have people like Michael Pena, Anthony Anderson, and Glenn Close on board this season. I guess it's all about balance.

What Else Was On

• Back in the 2000s, there was a show called U-Pick Live. It was basically Nickelodeon's version of Total Request Live: kids got to vote on what cartoons they played. And since Nickelodeon still ruled kids' TV in 2005, real celebrities stopped by to promote their movies. They went to some weird orange office in New York to hang out with an obnoxious teenager in a dumb superhero costume, answer dumb questions, and play silly kids' games. Today, actual movie star Sandra Bullock was there to promote Miss Congeniality 2, and she killed it. She beat Halle Berry's record in the dumb question game and crushed her competition in the boys vs. girls bag toss game. And she also wore a cow costume.
• U-Pick Live was also where they told kids to "ask your folks to use your mobile phone and send a text message" to vote for the upcoming Kids' Choice Awards.

TiVo Status

A Frontline documentary, the TV movies Sucker Free City, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Ladies Night, and one episode of The Starlet. 10 hours total.

Music, 20 Years Ago

I focused on Carrie Underwood above, but this was a good episode of American Idol overall. Lots of very good performances, and the worst performance wasn't that bad. My favorite was Vonzell Solomon's rendition of "Best of My Love."