“Dirt”
Last Tuesday FX premiered their new Courteney Cox vehicle, Dirt. That the series began promptly at its scheduled time of 10pm is about the best thing I can say about it. In the series, Cox plays the editor of a tabloid magazine called “Drrt” which is curiously void of an i. She is a cut throat executive who has no qualms about orchestrating elaborate ways to get “the dirt” on their celebrity targets — anything that will sell magazines.
The notion of a show about a tabloid is only initially appealing. Sure, it sounds like an industry ripe for satire, until you really start to think about it and remember that celebrity journalism became a parody of itself long before we started referring to people like Christopher Knight as “a celebrity.” The whole medium has gone so far beyond rational comprehension, there not only isn’t a reason to dramatize it, but efforts to do so seem naive and painfully boring. Dirt is one of the few television experiences I’ve had recently where I was legitimately disappointed in discovering the episode was being aired commercial free. Additionally, why did FX decide to slate a brand new show about greed, sex, fame and vice immediately after their established series about greed, sex, fame and vice? Whatever happened to programming diversity*.
If it isn’t enough that Dirt is wholly unentertaining, it also managed to dip into the grab-bag of modern, overused, cinematic trickery. Case in point: the speed-up/slow-down of film as the camera moves through a crowd (or over a urban center) is so far beyond the tipping point a ban should be instituted by the IATSE. Sure, we liked it in Charlie’s Angels, thought it was cute on Wonderfalls but enough is enough. We get it, you’re editing digitally. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Dirt is such a film-school dumpster we’re even greeted with the oh-so-popular shot of “shirtless guy carrying a girl while walking away from an explosion.” So powerful. So shirtless.
How did FX manage to stumble so greatly? Even Starved, their eating disorder comedy from 2005, had enough bright spots to get me through all seven episodes. And while Over Theremay have bombed, it isn’t due to lack of ambition. It makes one wonder if Kevin Reilly’s move to NBC might have had a bit more of an impact on the network than we would have originally thought (though It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia did make it past its first season). Where’s the creativity? Why is it so hard for people to create shows that aren’t about Hollywood, Cops and Lawyers? Where’s The Friendlys? Show me something crazy. Really, really crazy. I’ve got the time. Just try to do so without having a shirtless guy walk away from a fireball.
