Showville features small-town charm
It would be easy to dismiss Showville as Waiting for Guffman: The Reality Show, or America’s Got Talent: The Cable Edition, without Howie Mandel and Howard Stern, but that would be a little mean-spirited. AMC’s gentle-hearted travelling talent show looks like a mockumentary but it isn’t, really.
Each week, cameras descend on a small U.S. town, a different town each week where the residents audition for a talent show. Occasional actor-director Alec Mapa and choreographer Lisette Bustamante select four locals to perform a talent show for their hometown. The town’s residents then decide who they like best. The winning act wins a trophy, a small cash prize and a little TV notoriety.
Showville might not be American Idol, in terms of the number of people watching, but it reaches quite a few households across the U.S. and Canada just the same, many more than a smalltown carnival act would ever expect to reach on its own.
Thursday’s episode finds the Showville team in San Marcos, Texas, a town you’ve likely never heard of, and are unlikely to hear of again, but it has that infectious enthusiasm and blissful lack of self-awareness that makes Showville a simple pleasure to watch. It’s one of the more charming reality shows you’ll see on TV this summer.
If you’re curious to see a good-natured hour of TV that finds joy in people’s eccentricities, no matter how deluded they might seem in the age of TV talent sensations like Jackie Evancho and Susan Boyle, Showville has much to offer. It’s Waiting for Guffman, but without a mockumentary’s air of smug condescension and natural belief in the superiority of urban sophisticates.
It’s all there, from backstage fright and openingnight jitters to the inevitable swell of pride when the star of the hour basks in the applause and adulation of friends, family and smalltown neighbours, often for the first time. Nothing’s at stake — no multi-milliondollar recording contracts, no painfully drawn-out elimination ceremonies, no promises of instant fame. Instead, Showville finds joy in simple, modest achievements. Imagine that. (AMC) ■ TV feast or famine, you decide. Hannibal closes the season with Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a.k.a. Hannibal the Cannibal (Mads Mikkelsen), convincing the FBI that damaged detective Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) is not only a murderer but might be the Copycat Killer as well. Gillian Anderson returns as Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier. (City, NBC,) ■ Anna Paquin, hard-luck Sookie Stackhouse in True Blood, matches wits, and wit, with Jimmy Kimmel on Jimmy Kimmel Live! just days after Blood’s sixth-season premiere on HBO. Also scheduled: A performance by the Devon, U.K., rock band Muse. (ABC) ■ Never say Hell’s Kitchen didn’t do its part for the environment. In an hour in which chef Gordon Ramsay finally hands out the coveted black jackets, the winner of a pressure-cooker challenge earns dinner with visiting family members and loved ones, while the losing team recycles and plants trees.