A Slippery Slope Toward Last Year’s Vision

To heck with Kenny Kingston, Miss Cleo and every other TV psychic currently raking in cash at a rate of $3.99 per minute. If you want to glimpse what lies ahead, look no further than these pages.

At the risk of wrenching a shoulder back-patting, your faithful “On TV” seer had a profound vision nearly a year ago, when the Aug. 8, 2000, installment of this weekly testimonial to ennui--published below, in what amounts to a summer rerun--imagined the aftermath of a tragedy on a so-called “reality TV” series.

That bit of fiction was nearly realized earlier this month when a poorly vetted contestant on CBS’ “Big Brother 2” held a knife to a fellow contestant’s throat as an odd form of drunken foreplay. Kids these days, huh?

While there is some hyperbole in what follows, the point then, as now, is that such a scenario is inevitable. Which raises this question: If someone losing his wits with each viewing of a new series prototype could see this coming, how can TV execs and producers--armed with focus-group research, psychological tests and risk-management firms--state, with a straight face, that they didn’t?

The following press conference is fictional. It hasn’t happened, at least not yet. Yet given the current drift of TV into increasingly bizarre manipulations of “ordinary” people, can anyone doubt one like it will take place in the not-too-distant future?

Network executive: Please take your seats. First, we wish to express our heartfelt sympathy to the families of the nine victims who lost their lives during our latest prime-time reality series, “Kill or Die: Hunt for Survival,” which, as you know, premiered at the start of the current rating sweeps. We will do everything in our power to help them through their time of grief after this unforeseeable tragedy.

Now, with the understanding some matters are off-limits because of possible litigation, we will take your questions.

Question: In hindsight, would you have done anything differently?

Executive: Look, it’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback. You can argue that our background checks should have uncovered the alleged perpetrator’s history of mental illness, hatred of people and fear of being confined in small spaces for any length of time. But we did our best, and viewers loved the show--especially when he seemed to be experiencing a nervous breakdown--until this unfortunate incident.

Q: Was it really necessary to fill the house with guns and long, sharp knives?

Executive: I’d like to defer to our producer on that.

Producer (through German translator): Yes, of course that was necessary. Having the contestants hunt, kill and gut their own food on camera was part of the game. We needed to introduce a level of excitement beyond what’s come before. It never occurred to us they might turn the weapons on each other or the crew members, who, fortunately, were outfitted in bulletproof vests.

Executive: When you think about it, though, it does lend a little credibility to our contention that guns, and not television programs, kill people.

Q: Isn’t the network ultimately responsible for this?

Executive: Absolutely not. The contestants were asked to fill out and sign a 104-page waiver saying they accept responsibility for the outcome of the game. They knew about the strobe lights to keep them from sleeping and the wrestling matches that would be staged to determine who ate that night. No one could have predicted this.

Q: Wouldn’t you at least admit your security measures were somewhat lax?

Executive: The fact the alleged perpetrator was able to elude police and lead them on a three-hour, high-speed chase before taking his own life on the freeway, in plain view of the pursuing helicopters, was an unexpected bonus--or rather, a tragic and unforeseeable side effect, and we also apologize to the families of the children on the school bus that was forced into the embankment. We are told none of the 17 injuries are life-threatening.

Q: Who exactly conducted the background checks? And how could they miss some of this data?

Producer: We went with a top, highly respected security company, which we cannot name at this point because of possible legal action. They assured us they used every available means to research contestants. Why the stay in the mental hospital and the shopping mall shooting spree were missed is still being investigated.

Q: Isn’t this the inevitable outcome of throwing people who would seek exposure into such absurd, fabricated situations?

Executive: I don’t see anything inevitable about it at all. Several psychologists told us the uncontrollable crying and threats about killing companions were to be expected given the conditions.

We have been very clear since our acquisition by Yahoo--which in turn was acquired by AT&T; before they were bought, of course, by Microsoft--that we will act in the best interests of our stockholders, and we feel our mandate is to put on the most compelling programs we can find.

Q: Doesn’t the escalating need to be “compelling,” as you put it, lead to this sort of tragedy?

Executive: I don’t think so. “MASH” was compelling, but no one went out and started a new war because of it, did they?

Q: Um, “MASH” was fictional, and we were in Vietnam when it premiered.

Executive: Never mind then. But you get the point. At the end of the day, if viewers don’t like it they can always turn to one of the seven cable networks we own or our secondary broadcast channel. Everybody--except the extremely poor, I guess, and we’re going after a more upscale demographic anyway--has hundreds of viewing options.

Q: Were the videos from the families--including the one in which the suspect’s parents referred to him as “a pathetic loser”--really necessary? Didn’t that help trigger this response?

Producer: I will answer that, mein Herr. We obviously needed to inject a little emotion into the show, and we felt the videos from home would do that. You have to remember, this isn’t really reality, it’s just a drama using ordinary people as characters. There isn’t a script, but we are trying to tell a story, so we need to tweak things here and there just for fun. No one was supposed to get hurt.

Q: Now that people have, have you reconsidered this genre?

Executive: After doing a 34 audience share with the high-speed chase? Are you out of your [expletive] mind?

Publicist: We have time for one more question.

Executive: Wait, I misspoke there. Please ignore that. What I meant to say is we don’t feel one bad apple spoils the whole bunch, to quote the Osmonds. I mean, should we cancel all sitcoms forever because “The Mike O’Malley Show” was lousy? Of course not.

Q: As I recall, no one got killed because of “Mike O’Malley.”

Executive: Oh yeah? Did you watch the pilot?

Q: What happens to the $3-million grand prize now that most of the contestants are dead?

Executive: Half of it will be divided among the victims’ families as a sign of how sorry we are--without, of course, any admission of culpability. Rest assured, no one intends to profit from this tragedy. We’re in uncharted waters here, but that doesn’t mean we’ve lost our moral compass. Thank you.

Q: What about the other half?

Executive: I can’t discuss that at this time. I’m sorry, but that’s it for now. I have a meeting scheduled with my real estate agent. As you may have seen in the Hot Property column, I just put $1.5 million down on a new estate in Malibu.

*

Brian Lowry’s column regularly appears on Wednesdays. He can be reached by e-mail at brian.lowry@latimes.com.