Honestly, I enjoyed the Legally Blonde musical. While it strays a bit from the popular Reese Witherspoon movie (which was based on a book) about a, um, blonde Californian sorority girl who ends up making it big at Harvard Law School, it's still fun and peppy (and Pepto-y! So pink!) and makes no major offenses. The show's star, Laura Bell Bundy, is appropriately brassy and shrill and belty. It's a fun, silly time at the theatre. That being said, the new MTV reality series Legally Blonde: The Search for Elle Woods (which premiered last night), in which a gaggle of dopes with limited talent compete to take over the lead role, is a dreadful pile of muck that takes the already-weak and defenseless Theatre and beats it senseless with a pink cellphone.


Hey did you know that host Haylie Duff (sister of Hilary) was on Broadway once, as a 109th replacement in Hairspray?? Well don't worry, she reminds you every two minutes! And were you aware that Jerry Mitchell, the sly queen who choreographed and directed the stage show, is "legendary"? Yeah, neither did I. Mostly because he's not. But the show will try to tell you, 145 times, that he is. Eyyyyyuck. The girls are as desperate and sad as one would assume, and none seem to recognize the essential failure in logic of thinking that winning this show would be the achievement of their lifelong dream. Because, um, this is fleeting and silly and guarantees nothing beyond a bad six-month contract. Plus, no one cares. Or, hm, maybe you do. You're all big Max Crumm fans, right?