Everyone was talking about the decision by Fox Television to turn the stations left out of the UPN/WB merger into a new network called MyNetwork TV.   This network was going to try the bold experiment of bring telenovellas to American television.  The basic premise is this:  two shows running five nights a week for 13 weeks; after the initial run, these two shows are replaced by two new shows also running for 13 weeks; so on and so on.  I will agree this is an interesting idea, and yes it would be "bold" if Fox had put together two interesting shows.  What they offer are Desire and Fashion House, two soap operas that are throwbacks to the night time soap operas popular in the 80s (Dallas, Dynasty, Knots Landing, etc.).  The problem is neither of these shows is bold.  They are trumped up trash with poor writing, and acting so bad it makes daytime soaps look like high art.  It will be interesting to see what the ratings are tomorrow.  Granted, the people at Fox are not going to expect high numbers, hell UPN and the WB were lucky to draw viewers in the single-digit millions, so I would be surprised if these shows did any better, especially with stiff competition from the hugely popular House and the new series, Standoff.  In fact, I would be very surprised if these shows could maintain three to four million viewers a night when the full season gets going.

Of the two shows, I would say Fashion House has the better chance of doing decent. It has both Bo Derek and Morgan Fairchild in the cast and it has the most potential to be even a little bit interesting. Will I be a daily viewer? No, and I think that will be the biggest problem for MyNetwork TV.  There are only so many shows my TIVO can tape at the same time.

UPDATE:  As I said, I’m sure the execs at Fox were not expecting great ratings for MyNetwork TV, but pulling in nearly half the audience of either the WB or UPN cannot be a good sign.  Hell, these shows did worse than many cable programs!  I can’t see MyNetwork TV surviving with 2 and 3 million viewers a night.  I don’t see how they’ll attract any advertisers.

I rarely watch nighly news programs mostly because I find them useless; however, I decided to check out the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.  Not being a fan of Couric I wasn’t expecting much, and I wasn’t surprised.  Maybe it was being up there by herself, I don’t know, but she was kind of stiff and seemed out of place.  I’m sure she’ll get better with time.  I did like one of their new segments, "Free Speech," which gives people a forum to express their opinion.  Tonight was Morgan Spurlock — not a particular favorite of mine — and this Thursday they’ll have Rush Limbaugh.  I would prefer they just cut the celebrities and stick with everyday Americans.  That would be much more interesting.

UPDATE:  Turns out Couric was good enough to earn CBS record ratings — a 9.1 rating/17 share. I don’t know the break-down for a share of the evening news market, but that’s several million people.  Now, we’ll just have to see if she can hold on to a good chunk of that audience.  Interestingly, NBC came in third for the day, which is rare for them.  Could Couric pull some of NBC’s loyal viewers away?  And it looks like Charles Gibson wasn’t such a bad choice for ABC.

When I voice my opposition to the Iraq War to people I know, mostly Republican friends, they say, "Well, isn’t Iraq a better place without Saddam Hussein?"  Well, the answer to that question isn’t easily "yes" or "no."  Yeah, Saddam was a sadistic son of a bitch and I’m happy he’s gone.  Does that justify the Iraq war? No; there are a lot of sadistic bastards out there for whom we look the other way for one reason or another.  Saying we went to war to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein is simply wrong-mided and ignores the myriad of reasons the Bush Administration used to justify the war.  Second, is Iraq really better off?  Well, if recent events are any indication then your answer can only be "no."  The people of Iraq are suffering as much, if not more, since we invaded.  Our sons and daughters, brothers and sistters, husbands and wives are dying or horribly injured.  The strain on our service men and women is causing them to do things that not too long ago we condemned Hussein for doing.  Iraq is not better off.  If anything, it’s worse off and could be headed for a bloody civil with our military caught in the middle.