dirt – week 2

dirt

Image courtesy of FX Networks

I finally figured out what's bugging me so much about FX's new "semi-reality" show:

1) Lack of character development:

Last week, the show was seriously lacking in development of any character other than Lucy Spiller (Courtney Cox), devil incarnate. As far as Lucy's nameless underlings and the blackmailed celebrities barely worth mentioning, neither come across as anything more than spawn of Satan herself. Unfortunately, Carnahan (creator/director) is so busy showing us the ugly underbelly of fame that he forgot to tell us who in the hell Lucy's minor league Faustus impersonators were. The storylines in week two were slightly more engaging because the first quarter of the show was told by Lucy's schizophrenic photographer Don (Ian Hart); however, once the storyline switched to a different point of view, the show lost it's unique punch, and I lost interest.

2) Annoyingly overt visual design:

In the pilot, Carnahan went out of his way to visually show us that Lucy is Satan through her character's unimaginative, stereotypic red wardrobe design…yawn. Even though Lucy's wardrobe did change from red to black this week, Carnahan still couldn't resist surrounding her with red props in every scene. I thought her red vibrator was slightly amusing, but when Carnahan actually resorted to the cheesy blocking stunt of strategically placing Lucy's head in front of or between animal horns during two different scenes, I knew the devil imagery was getting way out of hand. We get it…now, how about a little subtlety?

3) Choppy editing transitions:

More than anything else, Carnahan needs to learn how to transition by using something other than a jump cut. All he's doing by suddenly jumping from one scene to the next, is ruining any emotional tone he might have created by keeping the audience distanced from caring about what's going on. I was more impressed with the editing transitions I saw in the teaser spot for "The Shield," which alternated film speeds and threw canted angles into the mix, making the overall visual pull 10 times more effective than anything I've seen Carnahan use in "dirt"

Between the predictably annoying visual design, lack of character depth, and crappy editing, I don't even know if I want to tune in next week…sigh.