Tuesday’s episode of On the Lot kept the show on its path to cancellation with its low ratings and modifications to the already-baffling format, but it also showed that someone inside the production or the network has, alas, lost faith in the show’s future. That’s because producers didn’t let the contestants produce new films; instead, they just recycled their audition videos.
As Entertainment Weekly noticed, a FOX press release announced that the contestants “premiere[d] their personal submission films and receive[d] the judges’ critiques.”
In other words, the films we saw were their audition films–not something new. EW notes that “[t]he show kept stressing that the shorts were written, shot, and edited in five days, as if to suggest that they were written, shot, and edited in the last five days.” That “saves production costs at the same time that it gives Fox time to figure out what it’s gonna do about the show’s Dumpster-diving ratings.”
On next Tuesday’s episode, if it makes it that long, watch for them to save even more money by replacing the set with a green screen, and Adrianna Costa with a cardboard cutout of her symmetrical self.
“Transformers” Star Shia Labeouf and Director Michael Bay to Serve as Guest Judges “On the Lot” Tuesday, June 5, on FOX [FOX press release]
