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Dave on Demand | How about a little 'Idol' melodrama?

It was announced this week that Constantine Maroulis, a finalist from season four of American Idol, will be joining CBS's The Bold and the Beautiful later this month. That got me thinking that when the public tires of Idol's singing, you still have the makings of a good soap opera.

It was announced this week that Constantine Maroulis, a finalist from season four of

American Idol

, will be joining CBS's

The Bold and the Beautiful

later this month. That got me thinking that when the public tires of

Idol

's singing, you still have the makings of a good soap opera.

Here's a typical day on Idol Worship: Our innocent ingenue (LaKisha Jones) is being pressured by the town's wealthy cad (Simon Cowell) to give him a little somethin'-somethin' or he'll put her out on the street. He made his fortune with a chain of de-tanning salons: 20 minutes in one of his booths and you come out decadently pasty.

LaKisha keeps waiting for her boyfriend (Jim Verraros) to come to her rescue. Little does she know that Simon's sexually ambiguous henchman (Ryan Seacrest) is holding Jim in an abandoned boathouse by Lake Sanjaya.

Meanwhile, Dawgtown's rich, lonely widow (Diana DeGarmo) is confiding to a friend about the shameful tryst she had with a porn star (Chris Sligh) at a resort. From the front seat, we see her chauffeur (Elliott Yamin) is eavesdropping. As soon as she gets out, Elliott calls a scruffy Iraq vet he knows (Chris Daughtry) and says, "I have a little job for you."

Finally, Dawgtown's regal beauty (Haley Scarnato) takes a job at a sleazy club to make money to treat the painful stuttering condition afflicting her boyfriend (Blake Lewis). At the job, Haley is being harassed by a dangerous pimp (Corey Clark). From the bar, a mysterious stranger (Clay Aiken) is keeping a close eye on the encounter - and curling his lip.

Save my place. This week's Heroes was set five years from now, which meant Hiro (Masi Oka) got to hang out with his intense future self. Hiro's pal, Ando, encouraged him to talk to his daunting doppelganger. That resulted in the classic line, "I scare me!"

Then future Hiro got gunned down, which didn't bother me. I've always found him a pill, with his slicked-back ponytail, his soul patch and his grim manner. But it devastated Hiro.

I'm still trying to figure this out. For a guy like Hiro who can jump back in time at will, I would think that death holds no terror.

Meeting of the minds. There was a laconic but significant encounter on this week's Lost as the batty Frenchwoman (Mira Furlan) met the recovered paraplegic (Terry O'Quinn) in the hold of the ancient slave ship.

"Rousseau," he greeted her. "Locke," she replied.

I remember enough of Philosophy 203 to recognize that Lost was trying to tell us something.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a Swiss-born 18th-century philosopher argued that man is a "noble savage," with an inherently good nature that is corrupted by society's greedy imperatives. John Locke was a 17th-century British thinker who held that man is born a blank slate (tabula rasa) that experience etches.

OK, all you Lost doctoral candidates, discuss amongst yourselves.

Alone at last. A news item this week caught my attention: "Anna Nicole Smith's ex-boyfriend quietly slipped out of the Bahamas aboard a chartered plane with their 7-month-old daughter and a television crew from an entertainment-news program." Because, let's face it, nothing ensures privacy as much as a camera-toting team from Access Hollywood.