It’s baaaak! Court TV
has returned to the air. Sort of. Zombie television. Want to watch the OJ
trial gavel-to-gavel? (Once was once too much.) Miss seeing Vinnie
Politan-all-the-time? He’s back too.
A group called Katz has put this thing together.
Evidently, they must
have bought the file tapes from the previous owner. They’re advertising a
37-part special on the Simpson trial. But other than Anchor Vinnie, they seem
not to have gathered the rest of the galaxy of stars that made the original
Court TV a household nuisance.
Watching it was like
watching paint dry, alternating with people wetting down the paint to make sure
it never dried.
The real stars have been
flung out of their heavenly positions and have landed in other parts of the
universe.
Jane
Velez-Mitchell: Gone with the wind.
Polishing her awards from PETA? Making the case for women who love
women? Running the JaneUnchaned News
Network, whatever that is?
Jack Ford: Still
viewable at CBS, sometimes PBS.
Ashleigh Banfield: Played Katie to Jack Ford’s Bryant on Court TV, then CNN, then Headline News and now… um…
And the biggest of them
all, the reprehensible Nancy Grace. She was most recently seen on Oxygen TV,
one of those mostly-re-run channels you find at the nosebleed end of the
cable/satellite TV dial.
In her day she was a big
draw because she was brassy, opinionated, and just the perfect hell-raising,
cut off disagreement commentator you love to hate.
About Vinnie: He
saw them sharpening the ax at the original court TV and got out before his neck
was officially endangered. Ch. 11 in Atlanta snapped him up. And he stayed there until Katz came calling.
Katz is conveniently
(for Vinnie) located in Atlanta, the town Ted Turner failed to turn first to
Hollywood, then New York and now… well, Atlanta.
A fledgling pay-tv
outlet struggles without a big name or two to trumpet. So possibly wide
“clearance,” can be an impossible dream. For example, the two major satellite
networks don’t clear it. The Scripps TV Stations do, but there aren’t a lot of them
and so the website offers readers an e-z form to fill out and badger your cable
or satellite company.
Which you will do.
Which will result in … nothing.
They’re on Hulu, though.
That’s at least something.
But they’ll soldier on,
at least for a while. They’ll stick cameras in the courtrooms to witness
cases of little consequence and hope against hope for the next OJ, or Jody
Arias or Casey Anthony, who also was known to viewers of Nancy Grace as Tot
Mom.
In all likelihood, the
Jury, you, will self instruct to ignore.
I’m Wes Richards. My
opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Comments? Send ‘em here:
wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2019
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