James Dickerson

TREND-O-RAMA: ONE MORE TIME

Everyone is risk-averse these days. Everyone wants to play it safe. Why? Where’s the harm is going out on a limb, being creative, being —gasp!—original? I want bigger, better, bolder! Instead, we get the same recycled doo-doo—is it any surprise that plagiarism seems to be such a trend-o-rama? Perhaps the saying should have been, “There’s no business like old business.” Let me explain...

When NBC started advertising its new game show “The Weakest Link” as “Survivor” crossed with “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” I groaned inwardly and looked for popcorn to throw at the television set. To make matters worse, this thoroughly unoriginal concept was also, like “Millionaire,” to be imported straight from Britain without even the slightest tinkering. And to play it as safe as humanly possible, the producers imported the host straight from the Brits too—no friendly banter with the host, no sympathetic encouragement from cuddly Reege, not even a trace of the good old American dream. This time it was all about authenticity—if we were going to get “The Weakest Link,” we were going to get every last bit of it, even if it meant enduring unpleasant tongue-lashings from that most terrifying of dragonladies, Anne Robinson. The effect, of course, is wonderfully comical. Robinson’s sneers, biting barbs, and unmerciful teasing seems to suggest that we’re back to pre-1776 America (Oh, this is totally random, but I once heard of a porn movie called Seventeen-Seventy-Sex: The Declaration of In-the-Panties. Cute, no?). Only this time—both because the contestants are uniformly moronic and because all the responses to Robinson’s quips seem to be edited out—there will be no Battle of Bunker Hill and certainly no Tea Party (though a friend suggested that the contestants all vote Anne off as the weakest link). Besides the whole colonization motif, the show also has a number of other things going against it. The set-up of the game makes it impossible to win any money, the all-too-fluorescent set and wretched music score suggest that NBC put all of the show’s budget into Robinson’s salary, the contestants can’t seem to understand a word the host says, the words “weakest link” are uttered so often that they’ve become a mainstay in my nightmares and nobody seems to be having even a smidgeon of fun. Where’s Supermarket Sweep when you need it?

On the same night that “The Weakest Link” bored audiences around the country, Michael Jackson gave us all another dose of the heebie-jeebies when he announced that he’ll reunite with the Jackson 5 for an MTV concert in September. This concert, incidentally, is to celebrate… himself. Yes, yes, the self-appointed King of Pop is holding the bash to commemorate his lasting “thirty years as a solo artist.” Who holds concerts to celebrate their own longevity? Sigh. Michael can try his darndest to turn back the clock, but it’s just going to go on ticking. (I’ll tune in if they promise to have Elizabeth Taylor give an unrehearsed introductory monologue. Her spectacular flub on live TV was the highlight of the Golden Globes!)

Let’s just pray that Madonna will show us that an old dog can learn new tricks. She announced concert tour dates on Tuesday for the “Drowned World” tour that will cover Europe and the States during the summer. But the catch, of course, is that where “The Weakest Link” and “Michael’s Tribute to Himself” can be seen for free on a tube near you, getting tix to a Madonna concert is a slightly more complicated enterprise. Sigh. The good stuff comes at a hefty price, but poo-poo comes for free. (And speaking of poo-poo, did anybody see Josie and the Pussycats this weekend? Yeesh!)