Great Performances: Jesus Christ Superstar. Clearly an oxymoron if I’ve ever seen one.

Now, don’t you get me wrong — I think that JCS is a wonderful show, but one that came from a specific historical period and is less effective in a contemporary setting. Watching this new version full of homoerotic rejects from Rent was almost as painful as listening to the square, lifeless singing. I’m all for colorblind casting (in this case, filling the traditionally black role of Judas with a white man), but did they have to pick a paunchy, balding cross between Phil Collins and Sting? For all its tank tops and leather jackets, this JCS was a definitely not cool. But at least it wasn’t as bad as the tour I saw a few years ago featuring a huge inflatable Jesus and a cruxifiction scene set in a Nazi-death camp where Christ literally flew off of the cross into the heavens at the end of the show.

What happened to the days when PBS literally showed “Great Performances” like Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, Passion, or even Into the Woods? Now it’s just hackneyed versions of Cats, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and endless Andrew Lloyd Webber tribute concerts.