Rosie Live! panned
November 27, 2008 - 4:25pm
Now I actually like Rosie O'Donnell but I didn't see her variety show last night and have no idea if the bad reviews she's received are fair.
Still, it takes a certain kind of talent to write a bad review. I used to delight in reading bad reviews by Jay Scott, the late film critic for the Globe and Mail. I was a devoted Scott reader not only because his reviews were often brilliantly written but also I found that our tastes were closely aligned - I liked every single film that he gave a good review too and agreed with all of his bad reviews - at least based on the sample of the films I actually saw that he'd reviewed.
Back to Rosie. It's a long time since I've read a review that says something so nasty but so true:
“Rosie Live” opened with a little song and dance from Liza Minnelli,
who rose to the stage, as if from the grave, to sing a duet with
O’Donnell
Rosie O'Donnell's 'Rosie Live': What was she thinking?
NBC had high hopes for the special and planned to expand the program into a series should viewers re-embrace the decades-old variety format. Other networks, too, were watching closely since several are developing variety shows of their own.
"There's a notion that the climate is right for the genre to make a comeback," emailed one executive at a rival network. "I guess we now know what not to do, thanks to Rosie."
http://www.thrfeed.com/2008/11/nbcs-rosie-odon.html
It sounds like a total trainwreck! I didn't think I wanted to see it, but now I kind of do.