American Idol gets Lost and Lie to Me

American Idol gets some competition from Lost and Lie to Me as winter TV continues to heat up.

American Idol keeps pulling me in. Why do I keep coming back for more?

Last night on Idol, there were a couple of interesting performers in San Francisco, including a few people who made it through on personality, not talent. There were plenty of cheeky people, too. Love the woman who said she remembered Paula having a hit…back in the ’80s… when she was only a child. Kara and Simon went at it a few times over him not letting her speak and I thought they were going to have to call security to remove one or two stubborn singers. All in all, another typical year of Idol.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Fringe. The show returned last night to big ratings and an even bigger slimy thing. Turns out that disgusting slug crawling out of people’s mouths’ is nothing but the common cold virus magnified a zillion percent. Someone pass the Airborne, please. I will give them props for the clever way they handled the recap of the entire series, simply by having Olivia’s abductor list off what he knows about her. The abduction was over pretty quickly and we never got to see Peter angst over it, which saddens me. We did, however, meet Olivia’s sister and niece, who will apparently be in mortal danger as early as next week.

Lots of folks are in danger tonight. Check this out.

Tonight On TV — Tuesday

ABC is looking to steal the night from Fox when they devote every hour to Lost! It starts with a recap special called Lost: Destiny Calls and then it’s the fifth season premiere of the quirky series.

NBC begins with a new Knight Rider, then it’s a Law & Order: SVU rerun followed by a new Law & Order with a marine biologist whose son and housekeeper are murdered.

CBS is the only one going for laughs with The New Adventures of Old Christine and Gary Unmarried. Next it’s the family that kidnaps together, stays together on Criminal Minds and a wrestling coach is murdered on CSI: NY.

Finally, The CW gives us another new episode of 13Fear is Real and then a rerun of 90210.

FOX comes on strong with more American Idol, then it’s the premiere of their new crime drama, Lie to Me which has a body language expert as a police consultant.

Over on cable

On Bravo the Top Chef contestants must build their own restaurants.

Ghost Hunters International is new on SCI FI as is Man vs. Food on Travel Channel.

On the dramatic side, there’s a new Damages on FX and for comedy, go for Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns on TBS.

News and notable

Michelle Obama’s hairstylist has signed a development deal for a reality show. Why not?

Judy Greer, Philip Winchester, Gregory Harrison and Maria Conchita Alonso have all signed on to the Lifetime mini-series Maneater.

The New York Post says that Rob Thomas is definitely working on a Veronica Mars movie. Photo credit:
Lost — Pictured: Naveen Andrews as Sayid, Henry Ian Cusick as Desmond, Jeremy Davies as Daniel Faraday, Michael Emerson as Ben, Matthew Fox as Jack, Jorge Garcia as Hurley, Josh Holloway as Sawyer, Yunjin Kim as Sun, Ken Leung as Miles, Evangeline Lilly as Kate, Elizabeth Mitchell as Juliet and Terry OÕQuinn as Locke. Photo: ABC/Florian Schneider/Bob D’Amico)
Lie to Me — Pictured L-R: Kelli Williams, Tim Roth, Brendan Hines and Monica Raymund. Frank Ockenfels/FOX

Related TV news

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Lost producers gives SheKnows an inside sneak peak
Reality TV Magazine looks at American Idol: where are they now?
The American Idol interviews: Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson, Kara DioGuardi