OK, so I am watching Meredith Vieira as she debuts on “Today” this morning. Admittedly, NBC is not cable, but Cable Game is always interested in news, wherever it is found.
And of course, CG is also perpetually interested in what people are wearing, and in the new studio high-def-friendly 1-A at Rock Center, and whoever else might be dancin’ and jammin’ on the Plaza. It’s also fun to see the paradox of the way that the morning news-talk shows—and “Today” is the grand-daddy of them all, reaching back half a century—handle family values, on the one hand, and tabloid-sensationalism on the other hand.
On the family-values side of the equation, Meredith is intro’d by Matt Lauer, and we meet her family, watch a slick montage of her childhood, and then go live to her alma mater, the Lincoln School in Providence, RI. Oh, and speaking of f.v.’s, let’s not forget the “Today Throws a Wedding” competition: can’t get more family than that. (And yes, it’s a little cruel, too, in its “Survivor” non-survival mode, as Meredith said, “I love you all, but one of you has to leave today.”) OK, that’s all sweet, part of making us all feel like we’re one big happy family—Matt and Meredith and Al and Ann, who each make a couple mil a year, or more, and all of us, the folks at home who have our humdrum jobs, but at least get to visit, for three hours every morning.
Meanwhile, Matt does an interview with Debra LaFave, you know the Hot Teacher who went to jail because she couldn’t keep her statutory-raping hands off of one of her students. LaFave is under house arrest for three years, but she got permission from a judge—thanks, judge!—to come and do the ‘view with Matt. For which she was utterly dolled up; that’s probably not the right message to send on the punishment-and-contrition front, but oh well. CG has always been fascinated by LaFave, because she is such a media creation herself. Don’t get me wrong: what she did was wrong, and she should be punished. But she’s so slick and so pretty—to borrow from Voltaire, if she didn’t exist, the media would have to invent her.
And so here she is, in all her glory, to goose the ratings of Meredith and her—oops, make that “our”—TV family.
