Posted: 12:00 am
July 6, 2008
We're starting to grasp what qualifies one to be named Keith Olbermann's nightly "Worst Person In The World" on his MSNBC show: Anyone who takes a shot, big or small, at Keith Olbermann.
Increasingly, Olbermann's focus is on Olbermann, which, unless conspicuous self-absorption is your idea of good topical TV, makes his "Countdown" show increasingly difficult to endure.
It doesn't bother me that Olbermann has a political agenda - that's the premise of such shows, that's the lure, most pretense is removed.
But now that his agenda includes spit and holler retaliations against those who have the audacity to take a swing at him, one begins to wonder if Olbermann regards himself as the Most Important Person in the World or just The Most Defensive.
Olbermann, who I knew and very much liked long before megalomania invaded, has become so stuck on himself that he actually has begun to rival his arch TV enemy, Bill O'Reilly, for air time spent on himself. That's right (and left), Olbermann and O'Reilly now often sound so identically immodest that they make for the same kind of turn-off.
Despite cloaking his counterattacks in sarcasm, Olbermann seems genuinely outraged that anyone would take a swipe at him. He further spreads rumors about his private life by angrily denying them. Why even bother bringing it up? Harry Truman said that he doesn't care what anyone calls him as long as it isn't true.
Alas, Olbermann now seems like just another guy who throws lots of punches for a living but can't suffer a jab in return
* * *
Since Jan. 1, when Time-Warner's Court TV became truTV, a once promising network now appears more eager to be seen as a garbage mill, as if television needed one more.
Much of truTV's primetime stock seems designed for viewers who would have difficulty distinguishing their remote from their Red Bull. Why else would fallen celebrities Tonya Harding, Todd Bridges and Leif Garrett be selected - rewarded for their criminal pasts - to host the network's "World's Dumbest" series?
truTV's promos seem designed to make it clear that the network has entered a very competitive market: Going as low as possible, and then a little lower.
In one promo for its lame primetime show "Speeders" - cops flag down speeders, speeders offers poor excuses - a young, buxom woman wearing a low-cut dress is pulled over.
"Why should I give you a break?" the officer asks her. The woman grabs her breasts, one hand under each, and pushes them up. "This!" she further explains.
Yep, the shining stars at truTV who selected this scene as representative of truTV programming are neck-and-neck with the ones who scheduled it to be seen at any time, including weekend afternoons.
The reality show "Party Heat," ostensibly one that tracks Southern California beach patrol and lifeguard units as they mostly pursue the young and the drunken, often appears more like an excuse to show teenage girls dressed in thongs and bikini tops that promise sudden jail breaks.
Many of the show's attitude-enriched drunken young beach boys seem to be precisely the kinds of obnoxious miscreants that truTV programming now targets as viewers.
If the show runs into a genuine shoreline crisis, it'll be milked for the entire hour, which is more than enough time to stop caring.
truTV clearly is working off a copy of the same old modern plan; it's Landfill TV: Garbage dumped by the truckload and then thinly spread and tamped - something to build on.
* * *
A&E's "The First 48," the best crime show on TV - real homicide detectives, real murders, real suspects, real investigations, real suspect iterrogations and real arrests - has a bunch of new episodes.
A&E airs "First 48" many times throughout the week, thus I recommend the show's Web site for air times. That Web site also includes profiles of the detectives, many of whom have appeared in several previous episodes. Almost all these men and women make for far better characters than anyone to emerge from a crime drama script.
Go get 'em Sgt. Tony Mullins, Memphis Homicide.
