Britney Spears has escaped the scorn of the tabloids lately. Probably ‘cause girlfriend has been working! Britney kicked off her Femme Fatale tour this week in Southern California. Right now, the closest gig to us is July 20 in Orlando. But judging from the reviews, we aren’t missing much.

“Even with bells, whistles, fireworks and scores of dancers, a pop star’s evolution is not always a pretty picture,” wrote the Hollywood Reporter, which noted that today’s version of Britney is an artist who is “seated for nearly half of her 90-minute set, who doesn’t quite have that spring in her dance step anymore and who requires a constant barrage of visual distractions while she mostly lip-synchs along to her hits.”

The San Jose Mercury News called Spears’ Saturday night show there a “shockingly poor outing from one of pop music’s biggest stars.”

MTV, quick to defend the artist it basically created, was predictably more gentle. “There were times throughout the night when it was obvious that Spears was lip-synching, but no one in the audience seemed to mind one bit. They were there to be served a shot of Spears straight-up. And they got what they came for.”

A shot of Spears? Ewww. It’s enough for us to yearn for the days of Prohibition.