I can’t be trusted. That much is clear. If I say something nice about the first episode of D: The Broadcast, it will come across as whorish promotion of another D Empire brand extension. So I won’t say that I thought the ladies did a swell job this morning and that Suzie Humphreys is my favorite part of the show (Suzie to Courtney Kerr: “Listen, I’m your mother for one hour every day.”) and that the sets looked great, especially the kitchen. No, instead, I will borrow a page from the U.S. military. In the military, they do something called an AAR, which is an initialism that stands for “after-action review.” Say you get ambushed by the enemy and an intense three-hour firefight ensues. After everything has calmed down a bit, back at base, you get some juice boxes and you talk about what happened and how you can handle that sort of situation better if it should arise again. Here, then, is the AAR on the first episode of The Broadcast:
— Here’s a fun game for the Table Talk segment: every time Courtney Kerr picks up her sheaf of papers and taps them on the desk to straighten them out, take a shot of Grand Marnier. This is her go-to move on the anchor desk. The show starts at 9 a.m. You’ll be drunk by 9:07.
— If they’re going to leave the ladies’ mics up as we go to commercial so that we can hear their private conversations, then have them say something interesting. Suggestion: Pat Smith mutters under her breath, “Emmitt told me yesterday that he hates Troy. Never could stand him when they played together.”
— In the kitchen, when Dean Fearing was cooking halibut, it would have been nice to see the ingredients. If a remote-controlled camera on a boom isn’t in the budget, just ask Courtney Kerr to stand on the cook top and use a handheld.
Looking forward to tomorrow. Again: for U-Verse, DirecTV, and Dish customers, it’s on Channel 47. On Time Warner, it’s Channel 24. Verizon is Channel 18. Charter is 22.
