Pussycat Doll Stuff

July 23, 2007

BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- In the spring, young women (or old girls) sang their hearts out to try to win the CW's "Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll." And for what? Winner Asia Nitollano never did become a Doll.

She wasn't fired, says CW head Dawn Ostroff; she quit to pursue a solo career. This might explain why Nitollano was a no-show for the Dolls' performance at the big Live Earth concert earlier this month.

Ostroff broke the news at a press conference Friday. She denies this makes "Pussycat Dolls" pointless. She told me Nitollano quit after the finale aired.

The surprise hit show will return to WGN-Channel 9 and other CW stations in the winter, but this time nine finalists will compete to be in a new trio called Girlicious.

Ostroff said Nitollano's decision -- which officially was her choice all along, to join the Dolls or go solo -- doesn't illegitimize CW reality competitions.

That would include "Beauty and the Geek" and some upcoming series that look super silly in preview trailers: "Farmer Wants a Wife" plus "Crowned," where mother-daughter teams live together in a house, with one duo suffering a "de-sashing ceremony" every week.

In other CW news:

• Scott Patterson says he had a contract with CW that if "Gilmore Girls" was not renewed for another season (it wasn't), the network would place him on another CW show (it did). This is kind of an astonishing disclosure to hear from an actor.

So Patterson, who played Luke, will portray the dad character in CW's new fall comedy "Aliens in America" -- replacing Patrick Breen in the role. Breen had already shot the first episode.

Patterson says he's disappointed "Gilmore" never got a bigger audience, and that it was always snubbed by the Emmys. He joked (I think) that the cast sat around and drank a lot near the end to drown their sorrows.

• "America's Next Top Model" has been renewed through at least 2010.

• Chris Rock will finally appear in his own show, "Everybody Hates Chris," as a guidance counselor in the fall's first episode. He has narrated the show from the start, but this is his first visual appearance. There's no word if it'll be a recurring part.

• And Ostroff says she's not worried about parents' reactions to the simulated pot smoking, sex and booze-swilling in the fall debut of "Gossip Girl." In the first episode given to critics, rich prep-school teens dig into all that stuff.

I didn't get worked up over the content when I watched "Gossip Girl." I was less put off by the line "tap that ass" than I was by a mother telling her daughter, "And put some product in your hair, the ends are dry."