I liked it. I still think he needs that other guy at the table with him to really shine, because it takes the edge off of his narcissistic megalomania. But even so the show works. He is smart and funny and fearless - and back in the sports context the stakes are low enough that it is possible to just enjoy and let Keith be Keith. Hopefully the sports setting will finally let some people understand that the "Worst Person" segment is not to be taken literally (Jim Crane is not really the worst person in the world). I could do with it being somewhat less self-referential, which maybe will decrease as time goes by, but they did note they were going to have a "This Night in Keith ESPN History" segment every night.
The first segment was especially strong - using the silly tempest stirred up by Manish Mehta of the NY Daily News (about Rex Ryan's decision to play Mark Sanchez in the 4th quarter of a recent preseason game as a fireable offense) to illustrate how incompetent and inane most sports journalism (and by implication, non-sports journalism) has become. This was all the more interesting because KO's old partner Dan Patrick had Mehta on his show this morning as a call in guest, and I thought at the time that DP gave him the easy treatment, and seemed to be taking his side against Ryan. I wonder what DP will say about KO in the morning? The piece was similar to a recent bit Deadspin ran about how ESPN used Ron Jaworski's claim that SF 49er QB Colin Kaepernick could become one of the greatest QBs in NFL history to create and hype a fake story over a couple of day period. Perhaps not surprisingly, KO's first guest, Jason Whitlock, noted that sports journalism needed more outlets like Deadspin, to watch the watchers. Whitlock also got off the best line of the show, noting that like prison as described on "The Wire" - You only do two days at ESPN, the day you go in and the day you come out (like KO, Whitlock has just returned to ESPN after famously leaving under controversial circumstances). >From what I can tell, ESPNOlbermann is only repeated once - and that appears to be consecutively (at 8 and then 9 pm), both on the Deuce. That is a bummer for me, as I am most likely to be able to watch something like this at the 11:00 pm hour. I would much prefer Olbermann to the current SportsCenter, but I suppose the point is they do not want to have him competing with SportsCenter. I will try to record it, but once the new tv season begins I suspect I often will not have a free socket. Sooner or later Olbermann will call Skip Bayless an idiot, or John Skipper a coward, and the implosion will begin. But until then I think ESPN just gave us back one of the better scheduled sports hours on television. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
