That new NBC reality show, Operation Iraqi Freedom, really sucks now that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Peter Arnett was voted off earlier this week.
Despite how impressive all of those special effects are for the show – like the tanks, the missiles and all of those actors posing as dead Iraqi civilians – I just don’t think I can continue to watch a program that would boot someone so talented so early.
I mean, let’s be serious, does anyone really want to watch Wolf Blitzer?
If I could find the right phone number, I would definitely call in and vote him off first.
He just goes on and on about troop movements and attempted missile attacks on Kuwait City. Jesus, it’s just a TV show Wolf.
Simmer down.
While Iraqi Freedom is still a pretty funny show, it will never top Fear Factor.
I mean, the moment I see a soldier from the Third Infantry eat a slice of pizza topped with eyeballs, coagulated blood and dead earthworms, I’m sold.
Unfortunately, I think this idea has run its course.
While the idea of putting a group of good-looking, insecure people on an island with no threat of bodily harm never gets old, how many times have we watched armies attempt to wipe each other out?
Wars come around every decade or so and I predict that Iraqi Freedom will be canceled within a month.
The show severely lacks personalities that the American public can identify with.
They have no Justin Guarini or Kelly Clarkson, and Donald Rumsfeld and Christina Amanpour just aren’t doing it for me.
What they need to do is put Ted Koppel and Tom Brokaw in one of Saddam Hussein’s underground bunkers and videotape them 24 hours a day.
That would just be good television.
That’s why the booting of Arnett is so disappointing.
He gave the viewing public one of the funniest moments of this show’s particular run when he conducted that interview with state-run Iraqi television.
What better way to pump up the humdrum pictures of green skylines and crotchety retired generals pointing at maps than to inject some drama?
The possibilities could have been endless: Arnett refereeing a pie eating contest between President George W. Bush and Hussein or a kick-ball game between a Republican Guard division and the U.S. Marines.
That would certainly make for better television that what we are getting right now.
And if there is one thing I know as an American, it is good television.
Mike Gainer can be reached at gainerm@temple.edu.
Be the first to comment