By Tray Butler

The “P.” in P. Diddy stands for “panic these days. Watch the hip-hop mogul closely on “Making the Band 3,” his latest foray into reality TV, and it’s hard to miss the horror that fills his bloodshot eyes each time the show’s fledgling pop stars actually try to sing. Mo’ money, mo’ problems indeed.

The latest outing of MTV’s derivative experiment in pop star fabrication follows the same trajectory of its predecessors with Sean Combs trying to mold a rag-tag team of wannabes into bona fide hit makers. This time around, it’s an all-female group a la the Pussycat Dolls or the Spice Girls and the results so far have been less sizzle and more fizzle. 

“MTB3” showed hints of strain early on when Combs canned the majority of the contestants and started casting anew for “TRL”-ready talent. The five finalists now have a name—Danity Kane (the worst band name since The John Cougar Concentration Camp)—and a shot at stardom, or at least the lesser, reality-TV imbued brand of stardom. 

Sadly, only one of the women, D. Woods, has any iota of apparent singing ability. The vocal vacuum became apparent in a recent episode that pitted the doe-eyed playmates against producer extraordinaire Pooh Bear. Poor Pooh, he keeps cool as a breathless Dawn suffers through several dozen takes on a song called “Sleep On It”—good advice for the frayed Combs, who finally orders that the song be rewritten for the singer’s lower range. Next, we find the girls piled into a Bentley and cruising the strip on South Beach until their joyride gets interrupted by a traffic cop. 

Such lightweight stabs at drama add nothing to this listless lump of sound bytes, which commits the cardinal sin of reality TV: The characters are all boring. In the end, “Making the Band 3” isn’t titillating enough to stay interesting nor is it mean-spirited enough to qualify as a guilty pleasure. I’m betting that Danity Kane quickly goes the way of “MTB’s” previous two products—O-Town and Da Band—both of which quickly crumbled after the cameras stopped rolling. Even still, Danity Kane’s album hits Aug. 22, including a single called “Show Stopper.” Let’s hope MTV takes those two words to heart.