Dirt

An odd show that is disappointing in nearly every aspect

When I first heard that Courtney Cox was returning to television, I was quite excited. She hadn’t graced us with her presence in a few years (the last time she was on TV was in 2004, with Friends) and I figured that no matter what she appeared in, it would be great simply because she was in it.

However, her new show Dirt (which was created by the company that she and her husband own) is an extremely odd show that’s difficult to understand, and even more difficult to like.

The show revolves around Lucy Spiller (Cox), the executive editor of two magazines (Now and Dirt) and the various situations she gets herself into while trying to find celebrities that she can exploit. She uses her power to find the deepest, darkest secrets that celebrities shield from the media, and publishes them in order to defame and humiliate them. Her photographer, Don Konkey (Ian Hart), obtains pictures for her that no other photographer could get, yet suffers from schizophrenia, which affects him while on the job.

On the other side of the spectrum is Holt McLaren (Josh Stewart) and Julia Mallory (Laura Allen), two A-List celebrities who are dating. While Julia enjoys being the center of attention, Holt grows tired of being overlooked for all of the big Hollywood roles, which causes him to take drastic measures.

While the show sounds great on paper, as it deals with a topic that has recently became quite popular (the media, the veracity of tabloid articles), it’s really not a great television show. The acting is sub-par, the writing is disjointed, and the two mixed together makes for one bad recipe. I was surprised at how dull and unoriginal Courtney Cox made her role as Lucy Spiller. While she has a witty line every now and then, I found myself uninterested in anything that she had to say or do. I was impressed, however, with Ian Hart as her photographer. His schizophrenic condition makes for an interesting storyline. I just don’t know how long that the writers can keep it interesting.

Another problem with the show is that while the world of media is truly a dirty place, Dirt revels too much in its fiction. While this normally isn’t a problem for a television show (just watch 24), it affects this show. The writers make the world in Dirt out to be like some alternate universe, where everybody has an agenda to kill someone or publicly humiliate them. The very few storylines that seem to actually have the potential to bloom into something else quickly wither and die. It’s really quite disappointing, since I had heard so much praise preceding the show.

Dirt, which airs at 10 PM on FX (channel 46), requires much tending to if it wants to become a mainstream hit. Right now, it has yet to impress me, which is not that hard to do. I only hope that the producers of the show can do something to make it more interesting. Because, unfortunately, it’ll need something other then Courtney Cox’s presence in order to become a great show.

Grade: C