Debbie Schlussel: Bird Flu, Shmird Flu: ABC Gets Sick, Stupid
Count us among those who think the Avian bird flu hysteria is a bit much, including the overhyped May-ratings-sweep ABC movie, "Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America," which airs tonight on ABC.
No, we haven't pre-screened the fiction, but very liberal Detroit Free Press TV critic, Mike Duffy a/k/a "Captain Video," has. He calls it "a bucket of hysterical fluff." We like his pronouncement:
Let's get this pandemic party started. ABC shamelessly bangs the gong of global disease anxiety with a schlocky "What if?" trauma drama about the ravages of a deadly international avian flu epidemic. Joely Richardson ("Nip/Tuck") is the sexy epidemiologist on a mission, a doctor from the Epidemic Intelligence Service. And Secretary of Health and Human Services Stacy Keach ("Prison Break") chews scenery as the ineffectual blustering bureaucrat. Bodies pile up. Panic hits the streets. But the only things dying in this hysteria-addled TV movie are the brain cells of those who watch it.
But, hey, it got former '80s cokehead Keach a job in addition to his day job as an incompetent warden on "Prison Break."
ABC will air a disclaimer saying the movie is "an extreme Hollywood depiction." Isn't everything put out by the entertainment industry "an extreme Hollywood depiction"?
BTW, our friends at PUTAh (People for the Unethical Treatment of Animals and humans) say Bird Flu is punishment for the way we treat (and because we eat) animals. But, very strange, no outrage or even a whimper from the very same people who screech every time Pat Robertson says some party got some disaster for the way they behaved.
Posted by Debbie on May 9, 2006 03:45 PM to Debbie Schlussel