The All-Pilot Project: “Homeland Security USA” and “13: Fear is Real”
Unfortunately, while COPS allows for victimless crimes, Homeland Security pretty much is limited to drug mules, actual attempts at terrorism, and things that are boring. Since (hopefully) terrorist plots are thwarted or uncovered before the perpetrators get to the point of landing on American soil, that leaves us with drug mules and boring stuff.
As an example of “boring stuff”, the first episode gives us several minutes of screen time showing a teenager stopped for trying to bring firecrackers across the border. Riveting. There’s also a big hunk of time for a Swiss bellydancer trying to enter the country without a work permit. I’m not sure that I need to know that Homeland Security is preventing pretty girls from entering the country.
The editing is weird – the stories are intercut rather than presenting one subject and moving on to the next. While that does give it more of a “scripted drama” quality, it also makes it a little hard to follow, since the individual cases aren’t exactly riveting. Do they really need to cut from “drugs hidden in a spare tire” to “drugs hidden in children’s toys” and back again? They’re the same thing!
The real letdown is that the potentially interesting bits suffer from a lack of interaction with the perps. If somebody is being held for something that’s possibly serious, they sit in detention while the officers discuss what they found. That’s the entire fun of COPS – watching people try to deny things that are clearly visible. Without that, it’s just law enforcement officers doing the things they do 100 times a day.
The Prognosis: While I didn’t expect anything great, it turned out to be a labor just to get through the one hour. While Homelad Security is immensely important, it’s just not that much fun to watch.
13: Fear is Real
Friday 9 PM, CW
The Premise: It’s a Survivor-style reality show, except in a horror-movie setting. Actually, they try to make it seem as much like a snuff film as possible, which is weird.
The Personnel: Produced by Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, Evil Dead). I’m going to assume that his actual involvement is pretty minimal, though. Largely because he doesn’t suck.
The Poop: Cripes. This show is shot like a horror movie, and it sort of seems like it takes its cues from the Saw franchise. I’ve never seen any of the Saw movies, but this sort of matches how they’ve been described to me. The contestants receive instructions from a disembodied voice and are pitted against one another in survival challenges. Losing contestants are “executed”, and it’s just as stupid as it sounds.
Beyond the cheesiness of the horror clichés that dominate this show, there’s a fatal flaw that has to be apparent to the viewing audience. It’s a TV show! When half of the contestants are tied to chairs in the middle of the woods, they’re not actually being tied up by a murderous psychopath. They are being tied up by the production staff of a TV show who have to follow all legal and safety protocol in order to get the show properly ensured. When the contestants react with terror to the goings-on, they are either faking it or severely mentally unstable.
The low production values and tackiness do make the whole enterprise sort of disturbing. As I said, it looks like a snuff film, and that’s more due to shoddiness than anything else. Video quality is terrible, the editing is a mess, and the lighting (presumably meant to be atmospheric) is MST3K quality. Frankly, this show could have benefited from Tom Servo and Crow in the corner. I mean, the “Death Box” is not at all scary, so a hilarious robot making fun of it would at least give the whole enterprise some value.
The actual creepiness comes from the constant references to “executing” or “murdering” contestants. It’s not like we as an audience believe that anybody was killed in the making of this series, but there’s something deeply tasteless about pretending that’s the case. But it’s still more stupid than tasteless, in the final analysis.
The Prognosis: I am actually mad at the CW for devoting an hour of airtime every week to something this stupid. However, I do not blame Sam Raimi for any of what I saw. Raimi’s sill cool, guys.
