Put yourself in the role of a FOX TV executive - Murder in Small Town X scenario.

Cafe Society
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Anybody remember this? A pretty pathetic reality/game show with its biggest renown being the fact that the winner, NYC firefighter Angel Juarbe, died in the 9/11 attacks.

But here’s the really bizarre thing: this show did really bad in the ratings, so bad that the decision was made to end it one week early. So the final episode, with Angel winning, aired September 4th rather than when it was originally scheduled to air - September 11th. So Angel was supposed to “win” on the day he died - spooky, if you ask me.

But imagine that airing change hadn’t been made and the final episode went on as originally scheduled, which meant that it (and the rest of the evenings programming) was wiped when the attacks occurred.

Now imagine you’re the FOX executive in charge, waking up on Tuesday 9-11, and you have this little piece of shit property that is going to be thankfully over and behind you by the end of the day. But over the next week you begin realize that the freakin’ winner of this show is still reported as “missing” (a brave American firefighting hero yet!), the show is still unaired, and all of a sudden this “little piece of shit” is one of the more poignant, bitterly ironic TV episodes in history.

What do you do? Do you air it? Do you promote it heavily? Since this is FOX, do you CGI American flags and eagles into every shot containing Angel?

Feel free to discuss the show as well. :wink:

(Kristen was about the only interesting person in the show, wasn’t she? And the #2 guy, Alan(?), is from my hometown (a “Survivor” winner is from Knoxville too.))

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Think back four years ago to the hysteria, recriminations, fear and anxiety after the 9/11 attacks. Not even Fox would have dared tried to capitalize on Angel’s death. The WB, on the other hand…

Shown, with limited promotion, with a tasteful memoriandum and the show’s end dedicated to Angel and all NYC’s rescue response teams.

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… wouldn’t even have realized what they had. :wink:

I don’t know. I think FOX would’ve hyped this one to the point of earning a couple of Pit threads. They wouldn’t have done anything to the show itself, but I can definitely see a 2-minute video/photo montage of Angel - clips from the show, some out takes and bloopers (maybe), home camera footage of life on the set, that sort of thing - being shown at the end of MSTX. And, as musical accompaniment, a female (Beyonce?) softly singing “God Bless America” in the background. Knowing FOX, the promotional clips (and accompanying hysteria) will be more outrageous than the show.

Yeah, I can definitely see FOX doing something like that.

If it were A&E, they could name the special Biography episode on his life “American Angel”. But perhaps that’s just too tasteless. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Hey, I liked that show! It’s one of the only reality shows I’ve seen that I think I would actually have enjoyed participating in. And it was more original than “America’s Next Top Plumber” or whatever profession-of-the-week has been turned into a reality show recently.