One of the things I’ve always found fascinating about singing competition shows like American Idol and now the X Factor is the assumption embedded in them that pop music is still a relatively pure genre that isn’t increasingly integrated with hip-hop. Because whether it’s pop songs that include MCed bridges or hip-hop songs where the rappers are singing their own hooks or are bringing in pop stars to sing original hooks, hip-hop is increasingly embedded in the pop charts, even if it’s not yet the dominant genre in American popular music. But the big competition programs tend to focus on the clarity of sung vocal performance. We haven’t had a show yet that defines what makes a great MC, or defines an MC as the most important voice in American music.

So at the panel for The Voice yesterday, I asked Cee Lo Green and the rest of the panel whether that might be something that the show tries to do in the coming season. Carson Daly cut Cee Lo off when he started to say “Christina Augilera was lucky enough to find our first—,” and Aguilera said “There’s versatility in the talent this year,” which I’m taking to mean that there is an MC in the mix. And I’ll be curious to see how that plays out on the show. Rather than straight covers, will the MC be doing riffs on preexisting songs, like Lupe Fiasco riffing on Kanye West’s “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” remix? Will they be singing and rapping bridges, like Chris Rene did less successfully than his vote count on X Factor would suggest? I might bet on the latter, especially since Daly ended up talking about rappers like Drake and Lil Wayne who sing their own hooks as proof “the line between MCing and singing is breaking down.”

And I’ll be curious if at some point there starts to be a consensus on what makes a good MC. I happen to like mine fast and clear (though I draw a line at speed for speed’s sake, a la Twista), but obviously someone slower like Drake, or like a lot of classic MCs (the game’s gotten faster, if not more fierce) still has a lot of love. And that’s hardly the only factor. In any case, it’ll be very interesting to see The Voice move the conversation on competition reality shows a bit towards where the market actually is. And we’ll see what it’s like to have Christina Aguilera, known for her belting, mentor an MC.

Maybe we should all blame Judd Apatow, but I find the way Hollywood handles older virgins kind of fascinating, something that came up again earlier today in the panel for Are You There, Chelsea?, the new NBC comedy for alcoholics with a lot of rage at their families*. A lot of the time it’s just the amazement that people have made it past whatever arbitrary age—18, 25, 40—without having sex. And sure, there are not a ton of older virgins, but they’re hardly mythical creatures. Sometimes, it just doesn’t happen for people.

But more to the point, there’s the idea that if someone is a virgin at an advanced age, they need to be fixed, as if virginity is inherently a flaw or the result of someone being damaged. Sometimes, as The 40 Year Old Virgin put it, sex jus doesn’t happen for people. That movie was probably the most positive way to spin that particular kind of plot arc—Andy wants to have sex, but after some bad experiences, has essentially stopped trying. That it hasn’t happened isn’t really his fault, and he’s not an inherently damaged person. The advice he’s given turns out to be mostly BS, too: there is no secret code for getting with women or having satisfying sex. He just has to find someone he feels comfortable with.

That hasn’t exactly been the case with television recently, though. Glee‘s played out Emma as an incredibly damaged person who does bad things to other people by virtue of refusing to fix herself. I don’t know what will happen in the upcoming arc where Will proposes to her. But the show has not exactly handled her with delicacy and empathy. Now, Are You There, Chelsea? is going to have its bitter, alcoholic party girl rooming with another late-twenties virgin, Dee Dee, who I am informed by the network no longer has her eyes pop all the time. Lauren Lapkus, who plays Dee Dee explains: “She has really strong morals, religious morals. But she’s able to go with the flow. And then kind of help her open herself up in different ways. And over the course of the season she has experiences she wouldn’t necessarily have with different guys.” Which, you know, okay. I like the idea of a sympathetic religious character on network television. But I really hope they treat her as if she has something to bring to the table, rather than having her deliver moralistic sermons on subjects that Chelsea’s already made her mind up on. And as for her getting opened up to new experiences? I’m not sure Chelsea Handler, fictional or otherwise, is someone who should guide someone in a sensitive way towards their deflowering.

*Chelsea Handler’s explanation for why she’s playing a character based on her own sister? “I have a sister. Period. Her name isn’t Sloane. And we had to change her name for legal reasons, so my own family can’t sue me…Everything I’ve been accusing her of my whole life I can now reenact before her eyes.”

Watching the presentation for Fashion Star right now, at which we learned that Ben Silverman isn’t concerned about producing shows in the United States and Nicole Richie has awesome turquoise shoes, I was struck by how much the show sounds like an extension of Bravo’s brand. The way it works is this: designers compete to have their designs purchased by companies like Saks and Macys, who will have those clothes in stores the day after each episode airs, and at the end of the season, one designer will win a deal worth, in Silverman’s words “more than $6 million,” which I expect means in the expected income instead of the actual cash value of the prize.

I was working on a piece that didn’t pan out last year about Andy Cohen, Bravo’s former programming director who is now going full-time on his talk show. And at the time, the thing we discussed a great deal is the extent to which, if you have enough money, you can live in the world of Bravo’s shows. You can go to Lisa VanDerPump’s restaurants in Los Angeles. You can hire Kyle Richards’ husband (or any of the guys on Million Dollar Listing) to sell your house or help you buy one. Consultations are available with Patti Stanger if you’re looking for love. You can go to any of the restaurants where the Top Chef contestants and judges work or consult (this is totally why I went to Craftsteak in Vegas).

Fashion Star is essentially a lower-rent, fast-fashion version of this, coupled with instant gratification. I think we’re going to see a lot more of this trend, where television networks both create a compelling world and then give you a little bit of a way to live in it. Glee is particularly up front about this, and the revenue it rakes in from iTunes and concert tours will probably keep it alive even as the ratings dip.

At this morning’s executive session, I asked NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt if the network could turn itself around by taking its success building fanatical fanbases for its shows among nerds and identify underserved demographics like black and Latino viewers and program to their needs*. His answer wasn’t particularly specific, but it was revealing, and suggested that NBC is doing some development work in that direction. He told me:

It’s always tricky to think about the niche and trying to build on the niche. Because unfortunately that’s been the good news and the bad news of a show like Community. It has such a strong core audience, and yet it’s been hard to expand that audience. What we’re trying to do is seize on the audience that’s going to come to it at the beginning…we’re developing all kinds of those things. I’m not sure yet what it’ll yield out of development. But we have to some degree do the thing that no one else is doing but we have to be broad. You can just program for 18-year-old twins and get a hit show on a cable network. We just have to figure out how to seize on that but also not end up in the narrow place.

I think this is probably true, even if it’s deeply unfortunate that shows aimed at a black audience, or that star black or Latino characters, count as such a niche that programming in that direction means networks assume they’re giving up white viewers. But a recession seems like a good time to try to win some minority viewers back to the networks by showing them that cable isn’t the only place that will tell stories about their lives or meet their needs. NBC’s very good at fan service for nerds. It would be cool to see them try to do something similar for other categories of underserved viewers. And it would be nice for someone to demonstrate an understanding that Tyler Perry products aren’t just popular because they’re Tyler Perry products, but because they’re an entrant in a comparatively bare market.

*I maaaay have used Living Single as an example of a black sitcom that’s the kind of thing NBC could do. The Hollywood Reporter may have made fun of me for it, but NBC would flip if it had a freshman comedy that pulled 9 million viewers per episode in its first season.

I’m headed to California tomorrow, where I’ll be covering the Television Critics Association press tour until January 15, so if you have questions for any of the networks, holler (in relation to Work It, “Why, for the love of God?” is an acceptable submission). If you’re local, and want to meet up while I’m in town, holler in comments and we’ll try to figure something out for one of my slower days.

Posting will continue apace, although likely slightly time-shifted, with some help next week from Tyler Lewis and Kate Cox, who have kindly agreed to come back and hang out with us for a while. And if I’m a little slow to answer email, that’s why. I promise I won’t get seduced by beaches and In-N-Out burgers and fail to come home.