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Radio,
Film & Television
On
the Origin of Specious ...
In 1831, 22 year old Charles Darwin set out on the HMS Beagle, a British survey ship that would take him to the Galįpagos Islands where he began to formulate ideas he later published in his now famous 1859 On the Origin of Species. But long before that, Darwin had begun recording his thoughts and observation from that first journey in a series of notebooks on 'the transmutation of species'. This past month, another British ship set sail, this time for the States. It arrived on NBC in the form of the latest bit of neo-Darwinian TV -- The Weakest Link. It's probably understandable that NBC had to get into the fray. It couldn't be expected to sit idly by forever while CBS & Fox bolstered their ratings with their own versions of Darwinian TV. After all, it's a matter of survival, isn't it!?! The Weakest Link combines the survival of the fittest theme with a quiz-show challenge, vs. the physical challenges of shows like Survivor or Boot Camp, or the personality contest of Big Brother. In this respect, Weakest Link is like Jeopardy meets Lord of the Flies. But the idea is still the same: Team up with others to take someone down, then bide your time before turning on those who were once your teammates. The appeal of such shows is understandable. There's a certain amount of drama involved as the crowd is thinned out. But Weakest Link brings something new to the genre. In place of the potential for injury in its more physical counterparts, it adds insult. The origin of the insults is one Anne Robinson {photo above}, a self-styled mean-spirited character who looks as if she might have stepped out of the entourage of some James Bond nemesis and decided to go it alone. That's part of the appeal. But, as someone's remark about Link betrays, it's not the only appeal. The remark? "It's like watching a train wreck," one viewer said. A train wreck? ... We suppose it's fitting, too, then, that there's a children's book coming out entitled Your Are the Weakest Link ... Goodbye. The 96-page TV tie-in is to be published by Puffin Books and is scheduled for distribution next month. It will sell for £3.99 in the U.K. {about $US 5.75}, and is already listed at Amazon's U.K. site. Well ... Not ourselves above catering to the prurient interests of fans everywhere, and partly as a public service to those who like the show but may have missed an insult or two, we decided to bring you a 'best of' Ms. Robinson's biting barbs. ... Personally, she's no Shakespeare. ... But then, neither is The Weakest Link any Taming of the Shrew. ... .
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