THE TV CRITIC: CBS Sports Deserves A Slap On The Back And Hearty Well Done (For Fixing Last Week’s Horrid Waste of TV Time)

By F. Stop Fitzgerald

ÿÿÿ The theme of last week’s CBS coverage of the AMA Supercross series was highlighted by three major flaws:

ÿÿÿ (1) There was no action for the first 30 minutes. In fact, CBS only showed one minute of racing in the first half hour last week.

ÿÿÿ (2) All-crowds all-the-time plot line got old quick. The director of last week’s TV show specialized in crowd shots. It was all crowd shots all the time. This would have been great if it was the AMA Supercross Crowd Championship, but it wasn’t. Whenever the show got slow, and last week’s show was a draggy canned event (save for the actual racing), the director cut away to a crowd shot. As a TV critic I understand that a lot of TV time is used to promote something else (not always to the benefit of what we are watching at the moment), and the reason the Feld-controlled CBS show focuses on the crowd shots, the Pit Party and the fireworks is to build fan interest in going to the next race on the schedule. The TV show costs money, which is paid for by event tickets sales, which if you carry this out to its circular conclusion comes from promoting how much fun the race is on TV so that they can sell more tickets and buy more TV time and on and on and on. Okay, I get it, the TV show isn’t a stand-alone TV show, but part of a much larger commercial enterprise. It still stinks when it is over done.

ÿÿÿ (3) Last week, when the crowd wasn’t available CBS resorted to showing scantily clad girls (paid to be scantily clad and inappropriately wiggly on cue by Monster Energy). If the stripper-dressed girls keep upping their act as much as they have in the last year, it won’t be long until Supercross will only be available on the Playboy Channel–it’s getting that ridiculous (made all the more surreal by the naughty camera angles). The stands and living rooms of America are filled with ten-year-old kids that prefer to get their porn when mom and dad aren’t sitting next to them.

WHAT ABOUT THIS WEEK’S SHOW?

This TV critic was vocal in criticizing last week’s CBS coverage (as I think anyone who saw the show should have been). But, in most things having to do with race promoters, criticism from critics doesn’t carry much weight. But something happened at CBS (which is really the Feld Entertainment Group) to make them fix the show.

This week’s CBS coverage of the Houston Supercross was 100 percent better than last week. Gone were the strippers…oops, I mean Monster Girls, gone were the excessive crowd shots, gone was the 30 minutes of dead air (which is code for any time Ralph Shaheen and Jeff Emig are talking without anything happening).

In the place of all of last week’s dreadful TV drivel was action, action and action. Kudos. The show started with a complete heat race (actually heat two), a recap of the other heat and highlights of the LCQ. The post-heat race interviews were short and sweet (we’ve heard the blah-blah-blah responses of Reed and Stewart enough times already to know what they are going to say). The Twilight Zone piece about Stewart’s rough starts in past seasons, and the addition of Ricky Carmichael talking about his face plant at the start of the 2002 season, was all good stuff.

The second 30 minutes of the show was mostly action. This TV critics only quibble was that they hyped up a duel for sixth between Alessi, Tedesco, Windham and Ferry and then cut away to show Stewart crossing the finish line. If you start something ? finish it.

Props go to Chad Reed, who used to be a putz on TV. Chad used to make strange faces (although no where near as strange as Jason Lawrence’s faces. Jason should do post-race interviews dressed like the Unknown Comic). And Chad said things that made him very unlikable, while the new Chad Reed actually seems likable. Word of advice to Chad: In the future, when you do a TV commercial for Thor call your third-grade English teacher (although I suppose in your case it would probably be your third-grade Australian teacher) and have her explain why “Winning Supercross Championships ain’t easy” ain’t correct.