Dark Side of the 2000s

A cool nostalgia trip but the topics leave a lot to be desired. For every TRL, Jon and Kate plus 8 or Bachelor documentary there are unbalanced TMZ, Charlie Sheen/Linsay Lohan, or Maxim magazine episodes.

A reoccurring theme with this series is Vice is trying to stage a Brittany Spears comeback or something. While the episodes do have a good setup, they mostly divulge into Masculinity is toxic or how the world treats women badly while refusing to cover Kate Gosselin neglecting her own children for fame and Jon risking everything to gain custody of them.

The series creator for this one seemed to have cherry picked topics and power of hindsight managed to blame current year issues on it.

For only a 12-episode series there is only really 4 at best worth watching.

I have to agree with the other reviewer in that the topics here were not well-thought out. Instead of the usual compelling narrative I'm used to seeing from a VICE documentary, I saw something that looked like it was produced by Entertainment Tonight. The series is called "Dark Side of the 2000s," but there was nothing compelling here, unless you consider Paris Hilton having a beef with Lindsay Lohan and/or Nicole Ritchie compelling. Episode 1 about "Jon & Kate Plus 8" actually was well done in that I knew nothing about that show going in other than it was one of the first successful "reality" shows on the air -- after the OJ Simpson trial, of course.

I watched the next two episodes, expecting at least something to hang onto in a serious way, what with the "Dark Side" of it all, but it simply wasn't there. I skipped ahead to the last episode about Siegfried & Roy and that was interesting but didn't move me to want to see any of the other episodes.

If VICE had actually done a show that hit the "Dark Side of the 2000s," like the 9/11 attacks, the unnecessary wars started by the US, the Swift-Boating of John Kerry, the racism accompanying the running of Barack Obama for president, and so many other dark warnings from that decade, it could have been a show worthy of VICE, instead, there's THIS. I would skip this one, unless you're into celebrity culture, which is fine, just not my bag.

The episodes featured are entertaining, sure. But not all of them hit the "dark side" appropriately. Most of the episodes are just a "remembrance" of the topic of discussion. It's not nearly as good as "Dark Side of Reality TV" or "Dark Side of Comedy". That's one.

Two, I found not only the celebrity culture but they choice of celebrity culture to cover to be a bit odd. There was no diversity. It just showed the nature of greedy satanic Caucasian men and women in America and if they were the only thing of existence in the past 2-decades.

Again, the series is entertaining but it didn't hit like it should have.