April 11, 2008 - Talents of 12 of 16 Stars Remain Secret: CBS Mercy Kills "Secret Talents" After One Telecast

CBS took one look at its new live, unscripted competition series Secret Talents of the Stars -- or, more precisely, took one look at the overnight ratings -- and killed it immediately. My question is: What took CBS so long?

This is a show that sounded awful from the start, and, once it started, got even worse. CBS was smart to jettison the series, but stupid to present it in the first place. As for the network's quick trigger finger, you can look at that as either a hasty overreaction or, as I do, a dream come true.

It was a dream, after all, I dreamt only two nights ago. Here's a paragraph taken directly from my BIANCULLI'S BLOG that ran Wednesday, the morning after Secret Talents of the Stars was unveiled live.

"Host John O'Hurley announced, at the start, that Secret Talents was a six-week series. That's a pretty nasty threat, but apparently that's how long it takes to showcase four stars per week out of a field of 16, then present the semifinals before crowning a winner. Well, that's one way, anyway. Another way would be just to cancel the show immediately, after one smelly showing, as CBS once did with its ghoulish compete-for-an-inheritance reality series, The Will. (Remember, CBS: Where there's a Will, there's a way.)"

Ask, and ye shall receive. If ye watched, ye know why.

One of my other complaints about that first (and now only) Secret Talents installment was that the only true talent on display, Mya and her tap routine, didn't receive enough votes to survive to the next round. Other than tastelessness on the part of the voting viewers, that oversight could be explained by the show's swiftly hemorrhaging audience. By the time Mya performed, there may not have been enough viewers left to cast a winning number of votes.

Only 4.6 million viewers, on average, watched the first episode, which is why there will be no second episode. Clint Black and Sasha Cohen, who advanced to the semifinals, will see no semis, and that's final.

So who won, besides the viewers?

Danny Bonaduce. He was scheduled to ride a unicycle. By not doing that, he avoided embarrassing himself on national television. At least this once.