TELEVISION REVIEW - 'Anchorwoman' is shallow -- film at 11! - A reality show asks whether a model and wrestling spokeswoman can anchor a newscast.
If you hate women, men, Texas, Los Angeles, television news and any of the social progress made by Americans in the 20th century, then "Anchorwoman" is the show for you.
On the new Fox reality series, Phil Hurley, owner of the struggling KYTX in Tyler, Texas, has hired Lauren Jones, L.A. model, WWE spokeswoman and general bombshell, to anchor the news, despite the fact (or because of it) that she has no previous news experience. Let the catfighting and dumb blond jokes begin!
Tricked out in pole-dancer heels and porn-star eyebrows, Jones is to models what Pamela Anderson was to lifeguards -- the product of the hack's guide to Los Angeles, where every waiter is an actor and women with large breasts are, by definition, sexually accessible (see also "Californication"). She blows into Tyler looking like an X-rated inflatable doll, having, presumably, never seen a television newscast (or else she would realize no one wears tank tops while delivering the news) or given thought to what the job entails. "I always wanted to be an anchor," she confided earlier to her friends at the gym with the requisite breathless giggle. All she knows is that Tyler, Texas, seems pretty darn dull compared with L.A. "You have bars here?" she asks at one point.
"Anchorwoman": A review in Wednesday's Calendar section of the new Fox show "Anchorwoman" misspelled the last name of news anchor Annalisa Petralia as Petraglia.
Jones doesn't help matters; though she figures out a more appropriate dress code and "practices" whenever she has the chance, she never seems to understand either the nature of the storm clouds around her or the definition of journalism.
"Anchorwoman" was created and produced by Brian Gadinsky ("American Idol," "America's Most Wanted"), and I'm sure he thought this would be a very funny way of exploring the nature of television news, of how thin the line between journalism and entertainment can be, of how desperate so many news outlets have become, using outrageousness to sell all sorts of things these days. "Sex sells," says one potential viewer when asked if she will watch Jones, "I guess now it sells the news."
