Don't touch that dial. Or remote.
Not after the producers of TV's latest and most authentic reality show, "Johnny Despot," threw us such a curve. We thought we knew what was coming. We were wrong.
The program's huge audience was expecting a swift conclusion after the title character sat down with Exile last week and gently informed her that she wasn't his first choice. Despite their steamy off-camera romp in the darkened woods, she failed to make the cut.
Aside from a few catty remarks as she packed her bags and left the chateau, Exile seemed to take the news fairly well.
Despot then walked hand-in-hand with his ultimate selection, Confrontation, straight into an underground bunker where they were to live happily ever after. At least until that 5,000-pound laser-guided bunker-buster bomb slammed into their foreheads and brought the series to a resounding close.
Then came the plot twist: The missile missed its intended target. Despot and Confrontation survived. Instead of a timely, tidy takeover leaving Iraq liberated and smelling lemony-fresh, startled viewers instead were exposed to something that looked suspiciously like ... war.
Dead Americans began turning up onscreen. Captured allied prisoners were paraded before the cameras. There was plenty of footage of the Iraqis fighting back, something they weren't supposed to do. Weren't they breaking some sort of rule?
How appalling.
How distasteful.
How potentially devastating to the ratings if the war doesn't rapidly get back on track.
"I'm not sure how an extended war would play to the American public," said Robert J. Thompson, director of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television. "Especially now that we are attuned to every little nuance of the conflict, both good and bad, 24 hours a day."
Gulf War II has been an unqualified hit thus far. The ratings for CNN, the Fox News Channel and MSNBC, which have been providing virtually uninterrupted coverage, have skyrocketed since the first bombs hit Baghdad.
Conversely, entertainment programming that traditionally fares well, such as the NCAA basketball championships and the Academy Awards, have had difficulty finding their usual audience.
True, a repeat of NBC's "Friends" outdrew ABC's war coverage Thursday. But it was the rerun of the special Christmas episode in which Chandler was tempted by that coquettish co-worker in Tulsa. The war took a back seat to that comedic tour de force.
History indicates the continued ratings success of Gulf War II might be difficult.
"A lot of people wrongly recall that the first Gulf War only lasted two weeks because they quit watching it after that," Thompson said. Those who did tuned out a month early. That war took six weeks to win.
Thompson does expect the audience to adjust to the sudden plot twists that can swing a nation's mood from jubilation to despair depending on battlefield activity.
"I expect there to be some leveling off," he said. "We're not used to seeing the ups and downs of a war in close to real time, minute by minute. But it looks as though that is how war in the 21st century is going to be covered."
So don't touch that dial. Or remote. Let's see how "Johnny Despot" concludes and pray it doesn't beget a sequel. I'm sure no one really wants to watch "My Big Fat Prolonged Conflict."
