I know it's hard to muster outrage over anything to do with a production of Grease. And I actually find myself not worried one bit over the integrity of the American theater, since who really cares who stars in yet another plastic Broadway revival? The people who shell out the bucks for that will deserve what they get, which is seeing two famous-for-15-minute nonentities attempt a two-hour singing 'n' dancing stunt.

What is outrageous, though, is how lame a TV show Grease: You’re The One That I Want is.

This is where I should disclose my guilty pleasure enjoyment of American Idol. What can I say? Deluded people proudly exhibiting their flaws to stunned silent response never fails to crack me up. But watching a cheap imitation like You’re the One makes me realize how good the FOX people really are at this stuff. Idol is brilliantly paced, immersing you in the audition room for long stretches, immediately getting you up close to both the judges and contestants. Plus, they make sure you see only the very best and very worst contestants. In You're the One they race through ten really mediocre auditions, and then break for a commercial, leaving you in suspense over what will happen to "your favorites." Favorites? I'm still trying to tell pompadour guy #1 from pompadour guy #2.

Also, the desperate stretch of using "you're the one that we want" as a catch phrase (as in "is that your final answer...") is just puzzlingly ungrammatical. That British mastermind "producer" and faux-Simon, David Ian, loves to go deadpan and pause for an eternity while staring down each candidate so we can all hang on the words after "you're....". You see, either he says, "You're the one we want to go to the next round" or "You're not it." But after the tenth "you're the one," isn't this just weird?

Okay, I'm sure no one else cares about that one.

Actually, what he really says is "You're the one going to Grease Academy." Yes, "Grease Academy" is the next round. Or as I like to call it, Sha-Na-RADA.

Finally, for a theater lover, it's impossible not to think about what must be going on behind Kathleen Marshall's calm and perky exterior. Not one of the people selected in the first episode would make it past the first minute of a real Broadway cattle call, yet she has to play ball and make nice about their few good attributes. Seriously, the talent on display was somewhere between community theater, karaoke, and prisoner rehabilitation.