'Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew'
TELEVISION REVIEW
The reality show contains many guilty pleasures, sure, but it's also a potent cautionary tale.
“Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew.” Say it with me, people, because it does not get more basic than this.
Like it or not, the VH1 reality show, which enters its second season tonight, is a perfect distillation of popular culture as we know it -- the euphoria-inducing, inarguably addictive grit that is left behind when you boil away all the multicolored distractions of the entertainment media.
"Celebrity Rehab." Where the once rich and famous have, by their own hands and by the power of celebrity itself, become ruined wrecks of themselves, weeping above their untouched meals, vomiting into trash cans and twitching in sweaty sleeplessness in bedrooms so well appointed they contain video cameras.
"Celebrity Rehab." Which last year seemed a live-action version of TMZ, with participant Daniel Baldwin leaving midseason after deeming the place not good for his recovery (it soon was revealed that the married Baldwin had been exchanging dirty text messages with a fellow cast member, the porn star Mary Carey). And Jeff Conaway ("Grease," "Taxi") bolted when he discovered he had to have surgery that would apparently require him to abuse pain medication.
When it premiered earlier this year, many denounced "Celebrity Rehab" and its star, Dr. Drew Pinsky, as exploitative. Finding people so face-down in the celebrity gutter that they would allow themselves to be filmed while detoxing -- how much lower could television sink? Pinsky, of radio's "Loveline," took a lot of hits for his own apparent addiction to the limelight, criticism that grew more serious this summer when it was revealed that three people died (two of overdose, one of suicide) and a woman was raped at the Aurora Las Encinas Hospital, where he is co-medical director.
But Pinsky argues that addiction and recovery are parts of the celebrity narrative that are too often derided or glossed over. Recovery, he says repeatedly, is a lifelong process, and it isn't always pretty.
It certainly isn't, even with this year's surprisingly high celebrity wattage. Actor Gary Busey may consider himself the headliner, but it's Rodney King who made news when he agreed to join the show. Conaway is back, along with former Guns N' Roses drummer Steven Adler, whose drug and alcohol problems are so out there he was actually fired from Guns N' Roses.
Also participating are former "American Idol" contestant Nikki McKibbin, model/actress Amber Smith, and actors Sean Stewart and Tawny Kitaen.
