If, after a fun day at the beach or pool, you just don’t feel like relaxing on the veranda and sipping a piña colada, there are some new major network shows peppered amongst all the reruns — but your time may be better spent among the fireflies and mosquitoes.  

Struggling at the bottom of the broadcast network ratings game, NBC has decided that originality isn’t a solution to building an audience — but ripping off successful concepts from other networks is an easier way to spin Nielsen gold this summer.  They must have thrown a lot of money at American Idol’s Simon Cowell in order to get him to produce the Idol-like America’s Got Talent, hosted by the legendary Regis Philbin, who himself was involved with a summer blockbuster many years ago called Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?.  In this latest incarnation of the variety talent show that began back on radio, called The Original Amateur Hour, producers scoured the nation for talent, but being that they were more interested in the kind that frequented the 1970’s syndicated The Gong Show than real, honest-to-good entertainers, you’re really witnessing more of a show that should be called America’s Got Issues.  Where American Idol and The Amateur Hour are and were serious ventures where winners actually do become recording stars (Frank Sinatra, Pat Boone, Kelly Clarkson, Clay Aiken), America’s Got Talent seems to be Simon Cowell trying to exploit his power and influence and adding one more reality show that we really don’t need.  

Like with Cowell’s American Inventor series on ABC, which was a terrific turn on the concept and was quite entertaining and moving — though ratings-challenged — Cowell wisely stays away from the judging bench (probably only because of a contractual limitation with Fox) but decides to bring in the B team to take his place and that of his Idol cohorts.  Playing judge on America’s Got Talent is TV and European recording star David Hasselhoff, who, I’m guessing being a producer himself, has the cred to judge others’ talent, though if you’ve ever watched an episode of Baywatch, you may wonder about that.  Sitting next to Hasselhoff is the now-grown-up teen singing sensation and TV’s Moesha, Brandy Norwood, who is a poor man’s Paula Abdul, and that’s saying a lot, considering Abdul’s place in the grand hall of entertainment is somewhere on the first few floors.  Simon’s alter ego in the designated British-only chair is another infamous acerbic Englishman, Piers Morgan, a former editor at the London Daily Mirror and, I’m guessing, an authority on American entertainment.  In this incarnation, the judges collectively can stop a performance when all three hit their buzzers, a la The Gong Show.  I’m guessing that the producers believe that American audiences won’t sit through a show unless there’s tension between judges and odd, talentless, bizarre individuals making fools of themselves on national television.  Perhaps they’re right, but I have more faith in the general public.  Regis is underutilized here and the judges overused.  I believe that America has oodles of talent, but only a sliver is presented on this show — purposely.  If you’re in need of some talent-oriented TV this summer, stick with the other Freemantle show on Fox, So You Think You Can Dance?, which sticks to Idol’s serious tone and shows very talented young dancers in a straight but entertaining competition.

With Treasure Hunters, NBC looked at CBS’s successful The Amazing Race and thought they needed their own travel log competition series, so they went to Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s company, Imagine Television (Arrested Development), for assistance.  The beauty of The Amazing Race is its simplicity and its focus on spotlighting countries around the world.  Treasure Hunters expands on the challenges that Amazing Race uses to help even the competition by making the hunt for treasure the focus of the show — teams of three, who also have a previous relationship, must figure out clues and solve puzzles which will ultimately lead to a key that will open a million-dollar treasure chest somewhere hidden in the world.  Like Amazing Race, they must travel from one location to another and go through both physical and mental challenges.  So far they’ve stayed within U.S. borders and, unless they venture to exotic spots in the world, Treasure Hunters may lose audience attention, which Amazing Race discovered when they tried a family edition that, for the most part, kept teams U.S.-bound.

Being an Amazing Race fan, I was not expecting much from Treasure Hunters, but after watching the first few episodes, it has grown on me and I’m beginning to root for certain teams — a key to the success of these types of shows.  The producers have rightly decided not to linger too much on the clues, but what they do show of the teams working together to figure them out is just enough to be interesting without being tedious.  If the show travels around the globe and the hunt remains slightly interactive — allowing the audience a chance to figure out the clues themselves — then I think Treasure Hunters may become appointment television.  My only big negative comment is with the host, Laird Macintosh, a bland, soap opera-type who just doesn’t add anything to the table. Here, the host appears on cell phones to relay information, but without the interaction that Amazing Race’s Phil Keoghan or Survivor’s Jeff Probst have with competitors, Macintosh comes across as some digitized, computer-generated “hostitron.” If he didn’t appear with the contestants at least during some portions, he might as well have been a pixel-only host.  I say put the axe to America’s Got Talent, and give Regis a visa to go Treasure Hunting around the globe.  Better yet, why doesn’t NBC just give us viewers the money spent on these shows and let us go travel around the world ourselves?  It would be a whole lot more fun.

For your summer dose of reality television, I say check out Treasure Hunters and So You Think You Can Dance?, but skip America’s Got Talent.  See local listings for times and channels.

Rich Burlingham

This is a severe slap in the face to all those who advocate democracy and freedom of expression in Egypt.

— Ibrahim Issa, Egyptian journalist and chief editor of Al-Dustour, an independent weekly newspaper, speaking about his one-year prison term for defaming Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.  Issa’s publication, Al-Dustuor, reported the case of Said Abdullah, who filed a lawsuit against President Mubarak for effectively pilfering and squandering public funds when state-owned enterprises were privatized. Sahar Zaki, the reporter, and Said Abdullah, the plaintiff, were also handed one-year prison sentences and crippling fines of $1,743 in a country where gross national income per capita is $1,250. Bravo, Hosni.  

Mimi Hanaoka

Most memories of my childhood home revolve around simple pleasures like baseball games at sunset or the smell of hamburgers during family barbeques.  As a kid, I never thought much about the fact that the neighborhood would one day change, but as I’ve grown older I’ve started to see the effects of the years’ gradual modifications.  

It was inevitable, of course, because of the evolving nature of technology and the fact that families change over time.  The tight-knit community I once knew is transforming as children grow up, families move, and the cycle starts for another generation.   This is actually not even the first time in recent years this plot of land has undergone a complete revamping.  The block used to be a farm until land developers spotted suburban gold and turned it into what my neighbors and I would come to know as home.  Some people might view this as progress while others see destruction; I’m sure the farmers and homeowners don’t see eye to eye.

For years, I’ve been hearing similar stories about the neighborhoods my parents were raised in.  Being born closer to the time of their families’ moves to the U.S., they grew up in a community that banded together, sharing in the experience of being in a new land while possessing a common link in the same parent country.  As assimilation occurred, the bond started to disintegrate and families moved out while a new congregation took root.  What were once fiercely ethnic, familial communities have given way to poverty- and crime-ridden areas, much to the disappointment of my relatives, who talk about the old neighborhoods with the same reverence the French royalty must have spoken of Versailles.  

This discussion hit home recently as I live in Manhattan and have become acquainted with the neighborhood around West 70th St. and Broadway, an area perfectly situated with the allure of beautiful city architecture.  Back in 1971, a movie based on the northern end of this very block was released, titled A Panic in Needle Park.  The neighborhood, it turns out, used to be called Needle Park, and not because of its availability of sewing conventions.  

This street corner, which today has turned into one of the more established neighborhoods in Manhattan, was once so full of derelicts, it warranted a movie based around its drug culture.  The fact that one city block could change so much in just 35 years is remarkable on its own; it is also a remarkable example of the changing face of America.  

When Supreme Court Justice Scalia joked, “As you know, all change is presumptively wrong,” he hit upon a deeper concept: everything will change, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.  Either way, the consequences must be examined. Every time a neighborhood is demolished or its makeup is changed, a bit of history is buried.  

For the sake of growth, we must always remember that change is not necessarily an evil; for the sake of preservation, we must remember to keep our pasts alive.

M R

95-93: The bishops’ vote that narrowly elected Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, of Nevada, on Sunday as the first female head of an Anglican Church.  She will be installed as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.

7: Total number of candidates who were in the running for the position.

9: The number of years Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will serve as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.

2003: The year the Episcopal Church in America elected the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

2.3 million: Members the Episcopal Church.

1/4: The fraction of those members who are 65 years old or older.  

Mimi Hanaoka