"On the Lot," the stinker of a series for which I once had such high hopes, finally limped to its finish last night. But at least something good came out of the whole sorry mess: Will Bigham, the sentimental favorite and one of the few directors who deserved to win, came away with the $1 million deal with Dreamworks. And despite my expectations that he'd find some way to worm his way out of Read more

"On the Lot" has been quite the slog this summer, it's true, but this week's episode was the one that I figured would make it all worthwhile. Three not-that-bad directors were going to pull out all the stops to make the best final films they could, Garry Marshall was going to utter more crazy talk, and Adrianna Costa was going to barely wear clothing. Right? Wrong. Well, the last two were true, Read more

This week's episode of "On the Lot" started with a somewhat shocking elimination: Zach, the director who honestly seemed most likely to win from the very first week of the competition, was eliminated after last week's vote. Yes, I said his movie last week was one of my least-favorites, and I think Zach made a strategic mistake by making a not-great sequel to an even worse original film. On the Read more

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this week's "On the Lot" was sponsored even more generously than usual by Ford. The five remaining directors all made films about the wonders of the open road — and, it would seem, the wonder of driving Ford vehicles on it. At one point, Adrianna Costa even stood like a showroom model next to one giant SUV, just in case we weren't getting the Read more

Did anybody else notice how many times Adrianna Costa mentioned during this week's "On the Lot" that the winner would be crowned "in just three weeks"? Three weeks! Almost done! We now know two more people who won't be walking away with the $1 million development deal: Mateen and Kenny, just as I'd suspected. All six remaining directors showed their films tonight, which once again were short Read more

Wow, how quickly does Fox want "On the Lot" to be over? This week, not one but two directors will be eliminated, letting this black hole of ratings suckage limp off the air a bit sooner. Sigh. Remember when I thought this show would be good? First off this week (which aired on Monday because of baseball's All-Star Game tonight), Adrianna — whom Mateen described as "a harbinger of bad news," Read more

Another week, another edition of "On the Lot." Honestly, I complain a lot about the quality of the singing on "American Idol," but even a Sanjaya performance would be more welcome right now than sitting through another batch of mediocre films. This week, six filmmakers took on horror with guest judge Eli Roth, whose Hostel II recently prompted a debate over whether the horror genre was on the Read more

I suppose it wouldn't be a Fox reality show without an insanely drawn-out elimination, and that's exactly how the latest episode of "On the Lot" rolled. Within the first few minutes, we learned that Hilary and Trever were the bottom two from last week — what did I tell you? — but then we had to wait all the way to the end of the show to find out who was actually gone. At least it was an hour Read more

Here's how dire the situation is for Fox's "On the Lot": It finished behind a "George Lopez" rerun in the ratings last Tuesday — and that was actually an improvement on its Monday numbers. Fox responded by ditching the show's Monday edition altogether and reducing the show to just one hour per week. Honestly, I'm not sure changing the show's format for a third time in just three weeks is the Read more