Former wrestler, Predator actor, and Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura is about to add another notch under his ever-widening belt: TV Show host for truTV:
Jesse Ventura will be working on a new conspiracy-theory series…Ventura will travel the country, investigating cases and getting input from believers and skeptics before passing judgment on a theory's validity.
"Ventura will hunt down answers, plunging viewers into a world of secret meetings, midnight surveillance, shifty characters and dark forces," truTV said in a statement.
First of all, let me just say: Ha ha ha. Thank god Jesse Ventura is coming to your town to evaluate the validity of your Kennedy assassination theory, instead of just some crazy hulking yahoo who thinks 9/11 was an inside job. How hard is going to be to convince this man that little green aliens abducted your dog? The dude fought Predator!
Still, this program sounds like an amazing 2:00 a.m. show for those nights when you are suuuuuper stoned.
"Since Jan. 1, when Time-Warner's Court TV became truTV, a once promising network now appears more eager to be seen as a garbage mill, as if television needed one more. Much of truTV's primetime stock seems designed for viewers who would have difficulty distinguishing their remote from their Red Bull. Why else would fallen celebrities Tonya Harding, Todd Bridges and Leif Garrett be selected - rewarded for their criminal pasts - to host the network's "World's Dumbest" series? truTV's promos seem designed to make it clear that the network has entered a very competitive market: Going as low as possible, and then a little lower." [NYP]
After six months, though it felt like twelve, TruTV kicked Star Jones off the air, at least in her regular time slot. The network, nee Court TV, and Jones "mutually agreed" to end the show. Not because of ratings, of course (of which there were barely any), but because of the channel's reshift in focus. Not that they signed Jones to her deal after they knew they were moving away from Court TV's programming model or anything. Star will remain with the network as a legal analyst.
We've been following Star's journey for quite some time now, from The View and the operating room to her big gay wedding and the East End, before she ended up at TruTV. And since Day One there, we've been monitoring her demise. And everyone agreed it was DOA.
COURT TV GOES TRU After all the public service it did with the O.J. Simpson trial, Court TV is changing its name to truTV and becoming more action-adventure orientated. Um, things seemed pretty action packed on Law & Order. Anyway, our only opinion on this is official misspellings are never cute. [AP]
Choosing Isaiah Washington as her first guest isn't going to make or break Star Jones' new Court TV TruTV show, but it will set the tone. Already, the gays are lashing out — and once you lose the gays …
But as Star learned about her gastric bypass surgery, some talking points are just too choice to leave untouched, especially when you've got the little issue of "generating buzz" hanging over you. Isaiah knows it too: In just over a month, Bionic Woman premieres on NBC, and he's written into the script for just five episodes.
So perhaps today's live 3pm debut of Star Jones is the merger of two opportunistic equals. Or, as the race-baiters will undoubtedly conclude, they're just protecting their own. Either way, we're looking forward to hearing Isaiah apologize for the 451st time!
How does Time Warner go about rebranding one of its television properties that's best known for The Smoking Gun's website? That's the dilemma they faced with Court TV, which they announced in March would lose its name and focus. (With all those Judge Judy shows, who has time for moderately less sensationalized courtrooms?) Out were courts and cops, in were real-life CSI rip-offs.
So after all that hemming and hawing, what'd we end up with? CONTINUED »
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