Network: E!; Genre: reality, documentary, comedy; Content Rating: TV-14 (for adult content); Classification: Contemporary (Star range: 1 - 4);
Season Reviewed: Season 1+
Wouldn't you know that E!: Entertainment Television was a cable channel that will look at the phenomenal success of the first season of 'The Osbournes' and have absolutely no idea what they are seeing. In trying to create their own version of the monster hit MTV docu-comedy, 'The Anna Nicole Show' mis-reads everything that is so engaging and likable about the Osbourne family. Based on the chosen subject of this show, they think we like Ozzy because he slurs his words unintelligibly or that we like Sharon because she's a spoiled Beverly Hills transplant. That, a few extra pounds and a trailer park attitude is pretty much all you'll find in Anna Nicole Smith - who E! wants to position as America's favorite strung-out, gold-digging over-grown baby.
Possessing not one shred of the wit, irony and evident unconditional love of 'Osbournes', 'Nicole' wants us to arrogantly mock Smith and feel better about ourselves watching her 1) house shopping while trying to find a bathtub she can fit in (no joke) 2) humiliating her son over the telephone and on theme park trips 3) being wrangled around by her handlers and specifically lawyer Howard K. Stern (an obvious tie-in in the making for E!) 4) giving us a fleeting but nonetheless traumatizing glimpse into her masturbation habits and 5) babying her dog Sugar Pie. That's it. That's the show people. If it sounds like your kind of television than you'll be in hog heaven, but you might feel awful in the morning.
This isn't hip it's just sad. I don't need my TV classy. I'm not going to call this exploitative or condemn people who want to make fun of what a pathetic individual Anna Nicole Smith has let herself become. I just need these type of shows to be funny, which this isn't. The problem with this kind of extreme television is that the results are just as extreme - it can be terrific (as evident by the perfect contemporary 4 star score I gave to 'The Osbournes: Season 1'), but when it falls it falls hard and lands flat on it's face. A miserable failure.
This show could have been a rich, stupidly funny satire of a celebrity who has outlived Hollywood's usefulness of her, but would Hollywood-worshiping E! really ever go for something like that? They just want this to be a drive-by car-wreck. It's about that much fun. "Anna" is nearly un-watchable, network constructed dreck, dragging not just through the episode, but from commercial break to commercial break. It's got a cute animated intro, I'll give it that. Reminds me of the 2nd season 'Strangers With Candy' intro. I'm sure that's not what E! was going for.
½
