Battling It Out in Syndication : What’s Inside ‘Inside Report’ Is Pretty Dumb

You knew it would happen. The replication of TV tabloids is now underway, as TV increasingly resembles a supermarket checkout counter.

And if one “A Current Affair” weren’t enough, here’s another.

The syndicated clone is “Inside Report” (no relation to the syndicated “Inside Edition”), which sort of unofficially kicks off the new fall season tonight. It premieres on KCOP Channel 13, which is running two half-hour editions nightly from 7 to 8 this week in advance of next Monday, when single episodes will begin airing in the show’s regular 5:30 p.m. time slot.

Channel 13 vows that “Inside Report” is on the “cutting edge of the evolving state of reality programming.” More accurately, it’s on the cutting edge of the evolving state of numbing dumbness.

Produced by WSVN-TV in Miami, where it’s been running eight months, “Inside Report” has copied the tone and graphics of Fox’s syndicated “A Current Affair,” and the KCOP show’s snide host, Penny Daniels--check the raised eyebrows and mocking sideward glances--is a sort of Maury Povich in drag.

The 7 p.m. episodes for tonight through Wednesday weren’t available for review. However, tonight’s 7:30 edition opens with a flimsy profile of gang violence in Denver, followed by a story about a man who lives with nine women he considers his wives, followed by the latest on a grandmother who teaches voice to hard-rock singers.

The gang story is a weak echo of similar stories. The husband-with-nine-wives piece asks if he can “sexually satisfy his flock,” but not why the flock--all said to be “college-educated”--would want this kind of life style, especially with a man whose appeal is not immediately evident. And the singing grandma story is a nice idea that is underdeveloped.

In any event, this is all pretty tame stuff compared to what’s coming, when “Inside Report” tackles UFOs on Tuesday at 7:30 and then dusts off Charles Manson on Wednesday at 7:30.

First the Manson piece, largely a rehash of his evil pedigree and featuring Daniels’ “exclusive” interview with Manson in San Quentin, no doubt the first “exclusive” interview with him since Geraldo Rivera’s the previous year. Like . . . who else wants to interview Manson?

More than merely dated--it was taped the day before Manson’s unsuccessful Feb. 8 parole hearing--the “Inside Story” interview is also mutually exploitative. While telling us how dangerous he is, “Inside Story” gives him the stage he needs to exercise his ability to persuade fruitcakes that he is some sort of messiah.

So goes the process of television. The “Inside Report” people allowed Manson to exploit them so that they could exploit him.

Of course, Daniels was in control here, shrewdly observing about Manson: “Right off the bat, he was menacing, intimidating. He acted like a real hardened criminal.” Oh, no. One of those ?

Manson performs on cue, speaking almost angelically, then glowering, screaming at the camera and finally lurching into a wild, chaotic dance.

“As you can see, Manson’s quite a showman,” Daniels says. “Later he admitted it was all an act.” Oh? Then why was “Inside Report” there to record it? Because “Inside Report” is all an act.

Of course, this show can be serious, too, witness Tuesday’s second-half episode that wonders aloud if “something is out there.” “Something” being UFOs. Ooooooh.

Farther down the road, “Oprah,” “Donahue” or “Geraldo” will introduce you to people who have dated aliens. But now the “Inside Report” investigation:

What else but aliens could be killing and mutilating those cattle on the screen, and then draining their blood? The evidence is more than just circumstantial. The aliens’ ships have been spotted and the weird beings themselves have been seen and touched by humans who could not possibly be hallucinating.

Explains one woman: “If you’ve ever touched a dolphin, it’s that feeling.” Oh, that feeling.

“I was medically examined by them,” another woman says. Aha: Gynecologists from outer space.

By this time, you’re convinced only that aliens created “Inside Report.” Beam me up and out of here.