On the Lot: So. Very. Long. (That's what she said.)

Does it seem to anyone else like On the Lot is on, like, twelve hours a week? Because I feel like it's eating up a substantial portion of my weeknights. And yet, somehow I managed to miss the last audition episode due to the vagaries of the Fox schedule. For reals, I'm still not sure when that sucker aired. Anyway, last night was the two hour premiere of the actual show, with the final 18 contestants and the fancy theater with the studio audience and the new host. It was...long. Really, really long. Mind-numbingly, soul-wrenchingly long.

Brett Crapner (RATner? Fatner? Ratnerd? I don't like him, at any rate...) is gone, and now it seems like our permanent judges are Carrie Fisher and Gary Marshall (who, it seems, thinks women can't or shouldn't do bathroom humor) plus a guest judge (this week, Disturbia director D.J. Caruso). And they are very...forgiving. Think three sober Paula's. I realize that the acerbic Brit has become a bit of a Reality TV judging cliché, and I by no means demand another Simon (much as I love him), but last night was a bit absurdly lovey-dovey. In every other way, this show appears to be an American Idol clone, format-wise. Tonight's challenge: one-minute comedy shorts.

The very good: Adam's Dance Man, which played on my love for overly serious British narrators and was oddly rockin'. Zach's Danger Zone, which took advantage of his mad special effects skillz without letting them overwhelm the piece. Shira-Lee's Check Out, which was funny, clever, well-acted, and generally awesome. Sam's Replication Theory, which was very funny considering it was based entirely on a fart joke, and probably made the most of anyone out of the allotted one minute. (Honorable mentions: Trever and Phil.)

The disgusting: Well, a lot of them. But most notably for me, Hilary's Bus #1, about a woman who pees in a coffee cup on the bus. And believe it or not, it just goes downhill from there (and yes, that could be referring to the urine running downhill after she throws the cup out the window).

The truly terrible: Kenny's Wack Alley Cab, for which the expression "WTF?!" was created. So. Freaking. Weird. And also impossible to follow. The remaining short films were either rather unfunny, difficult to follow, poorly-made, or all of the above. And yet, I sat through all of them. With a set of commercials between every two films. And no, I can't say it was worth it. Hopefully, this will get more tolerable as the judges grow bitter and hardened (like me), and the crappy contestants are eliminated. (I'm counting on you for that one, America. Make it happen.)