Last night I watched the season finale of The Event.  It was one of the few new shows I made it through this season and I was very happy with it (the other two were Onion Sports Dome on Comedy Central, which was better and FX’s Lights Out, which I would rate below The Event, but was still solid).  Game of Thrones is only halfway through its first season, but that appears to be the rival with Onion Sports Dome for my favorite new show of this television season (and last one –  The Killing is quite good as well to round out the top 5).  But at best only 60% of my favorite new shows will be back.  And The Event is not one of them.

I think we all know who is to blame for The Event not being renewed.

The Cape.

The Event had it all going – some solid star power, science fiction, 24-esque action-drama.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was very very good.  It drew some comparisons to Lost because of the mystery aspects to the story, but unlike Lost, The Event did not make promises it could not (and would not) keep.  It is easy for shows like Lost to offer the world, but disappointment is assured then when it only delivers Rhode Island.  For a bait and switch like that, you feel more cheated out of your time because you believed it would wrap up its bigger promises.  By contrast, The Event promised smaller, but was so far, delivering on it.  For example, in the first couple of episodes it is revealed that the adversaries are actually aliens.  Now if that is not your bag, I understand, but at least they did not string it along for seasons and then cop out with, “Oh and by the way, they’re aliens,” which would have felt more Lost-like to me.  But then late winter NBC decided to pause The Event and use the time slot to offer several episodes of perhaps the worst show ever made.

The Cape.

The Cape was the equivalent of being up 5 in the third quarter of a playoff basketball game and then inserting your ball boy for the next 9 minutes of the game in place of your second best player.  It was an epic failure, from weak acting, weaker plots, and special effects so weak I think “special” was being used ironically or to indicate an actual handicap.

So when The Cape experiment failed it did not only fail itself it failed The Event too.  I had been an enthusiast of The Event and even I needed a couple of episodes to get back into it again this Spring.  But by then the fate of The Event had been sealed and it was to be cancelled after the first season finale.  The Cape may have actually been television’s first suicide bomber.  It was not content enough to be irrelevant and miserable so instead it took out The Event just for standing too close.

So last night was the final episode of The Event and it was actually an excellent season finale – so if it ever comes out on DVD – it is worth a rental.  However, The Event’s demise is only a sad prologue to the possible ascension of Scotty McCreery as American Idol on Wednesday night.

Scotty McCreery is the 17 year old country singer from North Carolina who manages to juxtapose increasingly prominent cross wearing (seriously, I have no problem with religion, but given his trend of increasing his religious and cross prominence in his performances I expect him to be crucified on stage by his third song tonight) with the scumbag smirk of a investment banker that just fu*ked your pension fund and daughter simultaneously.  Granted, the kid has an impressive voice that is sort of comically low, especially when you consider it is coming out of someone who is a dead ringer for Alfred E. Neuman (or What Me Worry for my older readers).

Scotty will be competing with Lauren Alaina, who is a 16 year old girl going on 39 who sings more “fun” country music, versus Scotty’s more traditional country crooning.  Now from a business perspective I understand why American Idol would be happy to have these two goobers in the finals.  Their biggest selling winner ever is Carrie Underwood, which makes sense because the people most likely to buy records today are poor (i.e., less access to computers).  That is just my theory, but by and large the CDs that I have seen top the charts over the last 5-10 years, barring some huge release, tend to be rap and country: poor black people and poor white people are less likely to download onto iTunes.  So without a hip hop category for American Idol, country is the safe route to go.

I had actually assumed that adding Internet voting might diminish the country vote on American Idol (the way adding a non-incest requirement to vote might have as well), but they have delivered a 1-2 punch of syrupy, awww shucks-ness to tonight and Wednesday’s two-part finale.  The final three should have been Pia Toscano, James Durbin and Haley Reinhart, but none of these singers could have given middle and southern America the 1883 feeling that they still had a say in this country.  Pia was Italian, but probably resembled a hot Latin woman to too many voters (immigration concerns), James’s high pitch vocals had to have reminded America of Adam Lambert (gays are a no no) and Haley Reinhart – perhaps the name sounded Jewish (I have no idea if she is)?  Whatever the reason, they may want to change the title of the show officially to Middle & Southern American Idol or perhaps “Singers To Take Your Mind Off Of Having A Muslim President.”

And if the news wasn’t good enough for these folks, I am sure they are esctatic that Tim Allen has another sitcom coming this Fall.