Can We Talk about High School Musical: Get In The Picture

Welcome to a  Can We Talk about that is a bit different from previous ones in that it is more of review. Though this isn't my normal review style Therefore I have decided to make this a Can We Talk about. As I have confessed in the past, I genuinely enjoy the High School Musical trilogy. I enjoyed the characters and the music. As some of you may know I also enjoy competition based reality shows such as Survivor or as a better example for this article, America's Got Talent.  I'm not into stuff like The Real World or Jersey Shore (The show that gives reality shows a bad rap).  Anyways getting back on topic, you may be wondering why I'm bringing this up. Well some of you may or not know this but in the summer of 2008, a reality show based around High School Musical aired on ABC.  I was intrigued by this idea not because I like reality shows and High School Musical. I was intrigued by it because I didn't think it would work and I was sadly proven correct.


I honestly thought it was dumb idea to try and take something such as High School Musical and turn it into a reality show.  Many other fictional TV shows were given the reality show treatment. However there is one in particular that I wish to reference  for this article as it was very similar to High School Musical: Get In The Picture. That show is....

As you may recall in Music Fridays # 11, I confessed to being a Gleek.  When I first learned of The Glee Project, my mind went back to thinking of the failure that was High School Musical: Get In The Picture. Surprisingly, though The Glee Project acted as though they knew what to do.  While Get In The Picture didn't have a clue as to how a reality show was supposed to work. For starters, The Glee Project while it didn't necessarily have a host, the main mentors were people that were involved with Glee. While on Get In The Picture, the host was none other than Nick Lachey.  Now I don't know what they were going for when hiring him as the host other than I guess he's popular.

Quite honestly, my feeling about Nick Lachey taking part in this can be summed with this saying. "Stay out of it, Nick Lachey".    Seriously,  the show couldn't think of getting one of the cast members such as Ashley Tisdale or Corbin Bleu to host.  I have nothing against Nick personally but I feel that this show would have had a better connection to the movies had they gotten someone that was involved with the movies to host. 

Also I may be incorrect here but I barely recall Kenny Ortega appearing on this show. For those of you that don't know, Ortega directed the three HSM films and one would think given how involved he is with High School Musical would like to appear on the show. Well, I think he appeared on the finale but that was it.

 

Whereas Ryan Murphy, the creator of Glee not only appeared on every episode of The Glee Project.  He was also involved in the determination for elimination. Which brings me to another problem I had with this show.  They had the worst elimination process that I had ever seen on a reality show.  On most reality shows after someone is eliminated they are no longer on the show. Oh no, not this one. They just became part of the chorus. Which is a nice way of saying that were just back up singers for the finalists during the finale.  I mean I would be okay with that except for the fact that I feel as though they mistreated the elimination process by allowing the eliminated contestants to still appear on the show. Really, I find that almost embarrassing. I mean you are, you were competing to be a part of the  High School Musical family.  Your told that you've been cut but you get to stay until we get down to the finalists and you'll be performing backup  for them.  I'd rather go home than watch someone else go after the dream I wanted. I mean I may sound a bit jaded but c'mon once your off the show, your off the show.   I would have been okay with this had they done the chorus deal as some type of online web series like what Survivor does after contestants are voted off and become part of the jury.  

Perhaps the biggest insult of this show was the grand prize. Honestly the grand prize wasn't even worth competing for in my opinion. All the winner got was a chance to record a music video that would be during the credits of High Musical 3. Nice, you have a winner but no one is going to see there work because not many people who actually watch High School  Musical will watch the credits.  Again this is where The Glee Project was smart and actually gave thought into their prize.  The winner or I should say winners since more than one person won that show get to appear on Glee.  The two winners that tied get a 7 episode guest spot while the two runners up get a 2 episode guest spot.  I ask you, which is the better prize?   I'd say the guest spot.

Now I won't complain too much about it airing on ABC even though personally, I feel that this show should have been shown on Disney Channel.  I understand why they were going for ABC because with ABC they probably thought they could bring in more viewers and also The Glee Project didn't air on Fox but rather Oxygen Network. I don't know why it aired on that channel. Well the show did do one thing right in that they filmed in the same high school that was used for High School Musical. 

That was probably the only thing that they did right.  With filming in the high school that was used as East High in the HSM trilogy, the show had a sliver of a connection to these films.  Honestly that was one of the few things done right on this wannabe reality show.  

I think you can all figure out that I consider this the worst thing attached to the High School Musical franchise. Perhaps I'm just a fan who is  jaded and felt betrayed by what they did Now while The Glee Project may just ended, and it has yet to be seen how well the contestants will work on Glee. That show had a better handle on to A. to do a reality show and B.  actually care about it's fans.  That is one of the biggest problems that I had with this show.  It felt as though they didn't care about the large fanbase that HSM had. Now I may come across as dork and a loser but as stated I'm a fan of High School Musical and  that is one of the reasons this show angered me so much.This show was just one big mess and didn't even try to connect itself to High School Musical other than using it in the title and being shot in the same high school.  If they had just tried harder, this show would not have been so bad.   It just saddens me that one of  Disney's earliest forays in reality television was such a complete and utter failure.  Is it the worst reality show that I have watched? No,  that would be any of the countless love competition shows on VH1  but I still count it amongst one of the weaker reality shows that has ever been produced.  If a little more effort had been put into the show, it could have been better.