If America’s Got Talent
and The Voice
had an ugly step-cousin, AMC’s
Showville would wish
to be as cool at that. The premise is simple and completely
derivative: two vaguely famous “coaches,” Lisette Bustamante
and Alex Mapa, travel to small towns around the US helping
local acts prepare for a talent show to be performed for
friends and neighbors. Oh, and there is an audition process
that happens in the first ten minutes of the show, which
leaves the rest of the hour a rush to get to know the talent
and to care about who wins. Its not enough time. It has the
requisite train-wreck acts, and the second hand
embarrassment is rampant as the coaches pick four finalists.
There is little that is new or exciting about this show, and
it is so harried and takes on too much to keep us focused on
what should be the heart of the show: the local competitors
Even though its from AMC, it does not deliver on any of the
promises this network has made with its other original
programming.
This show seems too long and too short all at once. We are
hurried through the coaching process of a magician, a
renaissance festival performer, a side show duo, and a
married duet that plays the penny whistle and harmonica
(spoiler alert: the magician wins). While the acts are
earnest and interesting and represent Holland, Michigan (and
Americana) well, it doesn’t have much else to sustain it.
The suspense is low as the town votes on their favorite act
and the stakes are even lower since we can’t make sense of
the bigger picture; what happens to the winner?. The winner
wins $10,000, but we never hear how desperately they want it
or how terribly they need it.
Showville needs to
clean its act up to compete with all the other talent shows
out there and make a decision about what it wants to be. If
it were up to me, it would be less about the competition,
and more about the locals, showcasing their lives in
juxtaposition with their talent.
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