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July 21, 2004

24: "Silence is his wisdom!"

I don't know what's worse -- a weak television show of the "reality" type or a weak television show that attempts, and very blatantly fails, to be of the "reality" type.

"The Casino" is brought you by Fox (surprise!), and sells itself as a behind-the-scenes view of Las Vegas' Golden Nugget. Maybe I'm wrong and Fox is brilliantly thumbing its nose at the reality TV genre. Maybe they're deliberately starting a dialogue about what reality television is and is not. Should I give praise to the geniuses at Fox for giving us this witty, postmodern examination of current television trends and our collective fascination with watching ourselves? Or, have they simply staged every single scene of this show in an artless attempt to make it interesting? How boring can life at the Golden Nugget be that Fox had to make things up just to get us through this painful 60 minutes? Bless all the sponsors because without commercial breaks, this experience might really be unbearable.

Your guides through this wasteland are Tom and Zack, virtually interchangeable entities except that one is heavy and the other is not. I love the moment where they're trying to get their gaming license (or something) and they're audibly fantasizing about how the committee reviewing their application will "grill" them about their "known associates." What? Please! They evidently know Agassi, who makes an appearance at some point. Clearly Tom and Zack are running with a dangerous crowd! But when Tom and Zack aren't busy patting themselves on the back with fantasies of scandal and notoriety, they're occupied with being rich guys. Who are they, anyway? They're dot com guys still living in the 90's and they're throwing money at their Swingers-inspired dream.

Perhaps they should hire someone with experience or, alternately, taste. They aspire to make the Golden Nugget into something Rat Pack cool, and yet they haven't done a thing to achieve it. They bought some "phat daddy caddies" to transport VIP guests to the casino, and yet they seem to be entirely from the wrong decade. Good job, guys! Then they hire a lounge singer (his cd is hawked during commercial breaks) who is too good for this situation. I'm not kidding. He should run away and not look back. They take the best thing they have going, the singer, and attempt to ruin it completely by putting him under the control of their ill-suited entertainment manager. Not only does this entertainment guy seem more appropriate to a middle school gym than a casino, he manages to turn the singer's act into a classless karaoke night for local gaming officials. The singer is right to be upset. They have him working in what appears to be part dinner theater/part airport bar, and they're making a mockery of his legitimate stage show. Fools!

But, hands down, the most infuriating aspect of the show is the fantasy world Tom and Zack live in. They run around like buffoons, overstepping bounds of anything even approximating professionalism, and they'd embarrass themselves if they seemed at all able to comprehend the ridiculousness of their situation. And this all happening within the Fox construct of staged scenes tied together to make a "reality program." Weird! But Tom and Zack aren't concerned with the authenticity of their television show, nor are they concerned about not looking foolish. No, because it's time to race luxury cars to work like a pair of dolts! Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are too busy giving Freud something to chew on, tooling around in sportscars and throwing cash around like they're getting in on the ground floor of some ultimately doomed Internet venture. They're not worried -- there's no tomorrow, not unless the writers at Fox have scripted one!

Posted by ashley at July 21, 2004 10:16 AM