Not dirty enough

This morning's column reviews FX's "Dirt," which I did not like:

We have such a dysfunctional relationship with our celebrities and the coverage of them. We mock Britney and K-Fed, but we know more details about their relationship than we do about some of our closest friends. We complain that our society is too focused on the superficial, yet we make a hot seller out of the latest Nicole Richie anorexia story. In this age of obsessing about celebrities -- and wondering when our turn in the spotlight is going to come -- a great TV show could be made about our national addiction to the rich and famous.

"Dirt" is not that show.

Produced by and starring a badly miscast Courteney Cox as a tabloid magazine editor, it's the first outright catastrophe of FX's post-"The Shield" era. The cable channel has specialized in building absorbing series around characters who, on paper, should be despicable. So either a tabloid editor is too far down the evolutionary ladder, or the execution is a failure. While presiding over "Stars... They're Just Like Us" isn't a ticket to spiritual fulfillment, I don't know that it's any worse than being a dirty, homicidal cop or a womanizing plastic surgeon, so I'm going with bad execution.

To read the full thing, click here.