This is journalism?

Much like my last post, I'm going to write about watching a Tuesday night program on television.

Tonight's show: Primetime: Family Secrets

Okay, so I definitely watched this one with my mom while drinking Merlot. She's really into these true life crime shows. I believe the other one she watches regularly is 48 Hours Mystery on CBS.

Anyways, if you've never seen these shows before, they're basically trash journalism. Like Dateline: To Catch a Predator. The entire show is centered around creating an idyllic family image and then shattering it with a horrific murder. I was only able to watch the first half of tonight's two-crime episode. What follows is my interpretation of the programming.

Part I
The show has mood music playing over everything except interviews. Key buzz words are emphasized: "murder", "sex", "secrets", "lies". This episode is about a dude named Neil Entwistle. Right away we learn he probably murdered his wife and baby with a gun.
There are a lot of photos of the happy family. As they talk about how the baby was shot there are photos of the baby smiling. This is creepy.
There's this detective who reminds me of Nancy Grace. They keep interviewing her and she vilifies the crap out of him. Hahah, there's a shot of him on an ATM camera getting money and she goes "he had this look, this distant, cold look, like he didn't care about anything at all." Yes, because when people take cash out they usually present their entire soul to the ATM camera. Brilliant.
The guy is British and flew off to London. The cops search the house when the wife's mother reports her daughter is missing. The police find the bodies wrapped up in sheets on the bed. This is gross.
More idyllic photos of life before the murders. A subtle hint that the husband had "secrets". The words "sexual deviance" are used. Haha, slow motion shot of him getting out of a car! This guy is pure evil.

Commercial Break

Part II
Okay, so now they cover history of the couple before they met. He told he worked for British Intelligence. Bunch of credit card debt, etc. Guy went to a gun club with his father-in-law. Dude started shady internet businesses. Sold penis enlargers on eBay?? Weird. He had some online accounts at a sex website. Some nude photos of himself posted online. Okay, wow, ABC can apparently show these on TV with minimal blurring. That was gross.
He was trapped in an extravagant lifestyle and she must have found out. He snapped. The trial begins. We'll never believe the defense's crazy theory.

Commercial Break

Part III
The theory is that she killed herself after learning he was a pervert and was poor. Jury doesn't buy it cause they know the gun was shot further away than possible. The guilty verdict is repeated with a close-up shot of his face in court barely reacting. Probably from a different moment of the trial.
Shots of the baby's baptism a week prior now displayed. This is sad.

Final impressions
During the show my mom saw a commercial for Dirty, Sexy, Money and she said it was trash. I can't help but note that at least that program is up front about its content and is clearly set in a fictional world. Family Secrets, on the other hand, tries to sneak by as some sort of objective journalism when it's really just exploitation. The production cues were almost hilarious. It reminded me of that Simpsons episode where Homer appears on the tabloid show for sexual harassment. And at the end they show a slow-mo shot of Groundskeeper Willie with "evil" music.
I know this British dude was an awful guy and murdered his wife and stuff, but the fact that this passes for television sort of freaks me out. I prefer the Law & Orders that tell you the episode isn't based on real people (when it mostly is) to the stories about real people's murders. The photographs and home movies repeatedly shown were really creepy. And it's not like this murder was some sort of unsolved event or miscarriage of justice that needed to be known. It was an open and shut case of a perverted liar murdering his family. All ABCNews did was provide a little window into this family's tragic misfortune and private ordeals.

My final opinion? Primetime: Family Secrets is dreadful and bad television. I rank it: Cast of Scrubs.
P.S. I saw Ep 2 of Generation: Kill with the good Doktor this past Sunday and it was pretty cool. The first half I thought the show was trying too hard to be all biased and stuff but by the end I got into it. I hope next week is also very good. I like when the soldiers rap about killing people while riding in their jeeps. I also like when they talk about their dicks a lot cause that's what military dudes do. Apparently.

This entry was posted by Sean, on Tuesday, July 22, 2008. You can leave your response.