Pop's Ultimate Star?

TV2's latest attempt to keep alive the floudering New Zealand "Pop Idol" format hits a desperate low in a few weeks. On the heels of the realisation that this country is to small and far too uninterested to financially warrant a 4th series of "New Zealand Idol," comes "Pop's Ultimate Star," the pooling of all the unsuccessful contestants of singing reality shows past, and pitting them against one another to see who is the best of the bland (or "the best of the best" as the shows website would have you believe). Among the contestants are 2 former TrueBliss members, 6 New Zealand Idol contestants, and David Wikaira Paul - who was on Shortland Street and won some celebrity singing competition. Apart from the initial buzz and #1 single that came with being the winner of "Idol" or the first girl group created on tv for tv audiences, none of these contestants have had success outside their shows. Yet here they appear once again, in the hopes of having some kind of resonance with the New Zealand public. Or they've been offered decent pay checks to appear on the show. It's interesting to note, that the one person to emerge from these shows who HAS been able to gain some credibility, (Carly Binding, the feisty, helmet-haired red head from TrueBliss) is conspicuously absent, most likely from her own choosing. To tout these contestants as Pop's Ultimate Stars is terribly misleading. The best thing any of them have garnered post-idol is a a couple of tv appearances or a hosting gig on C4 or Juice TV. Is our talent pool really that drained, that we have to resort to regurgitating the same few personalities over and over again? What's worse is even when they don't make an impact on the viewing public, they keep coming back with the hopes that one day they will.