What is up with FX? Dirt is ...
Question: What is up with FX?
Dirt is just not that great! It is just another one of FX's "shock-skank" shows. What is so annoying, though, is that you can't even watch any of the network's quality programming without them constantly cramming this new show and its previews down your throat at every commercial break. And FX is canceling other programs to show the same stupid episode over and over. I'm sick of
Dirt and don't even watch FX anymore. Is this network really that desperate?
Answer: Seems to me that FX always builds its schedule and its promotional muscle around whatever original programming happens to be airing at the time. Nothing new in that. It might not be so annoying if the promos were for something wonderful, like
The Shield or
Rescue Me, but for the moment, FX is in the unfortunate position of having an utter piece of junk as its centerpiece, which will be the sad case until the Eddie Izzard-Minnie Driver vehicle
The Riches shows up mid-March. It looks like
The Shield will finally return sometime around April 3, once
Dirt signs off. Speaking of
Dirt, here's a comment from Brian, bravely sticking up for it:
"Everyone has the right to their opinion, so here's mine. I think that both you and Mark are way off the mark about Dirt. This show is a guilty pleasure that fills the void until Nip/Tuck returns. This is Courteney Cox's best acting since the Scream trilogy. She should stick with drama and suspense and stay away from comedy."
Sorry, but even in the world of guilty pleasures, there needs to be some standards. And
Dirt fails every one of them. It's just plain guilty. Guilty of being too self-righteous about itself, not to mention glum and depressing, so it's never as fun as it ought to be. Guilty of lousy casting (except for Ian Holm as the mad paparazzo and perhaps Cox herself), which is appalling, especially the characters of Holt and Laura, who are supposed to be big-deal Hollywood stars. Holt looks like the cadaverous cousin of Edward Norton, and he's supposed to be some big action hottie? Uh, no. Guilty of plots that are as predictable as they are pandering, aiming for shock but only achieving disgust. And do we really need one more scene of Lucy curled up to her vibrator? The answer, again, is no. While
Nip/Tuck has also hit the skids more often than not lately, at least there's a residual glimmer of glamour and anything-goes outrageousness. And the characters, when they're allowed to be, are still often compelling. Given how unappealing the characters of
Dirt uniformly are, I like to think of it as the porn version of
Studio 60.
