 Highlights and Lowlights
- My optimism at the end of yesterday's coverage turned out to be in vain. NBC reverted to their old fluffy ways. However, it was very uneven. After no fluff stories at all in the first 30 minutes (good!), the next hour contained over 18 minutes worth, almost a third (bad!). On a positive note, the last 90 minutes only had six-and-a-half minutes total of puff pieces.
- Part of the reason the second half-hour had so much fluff was that in our judges view (i.e. me), the equestrian events were mostly fluff. Harry Smith is great on "Biography," but he shouldn't be calling sporting events. Or rather, he shouldn't be dramatizing sporting events. Remember Bob Costas' quote from the end of last night? Harry needs to learn this.
- The announcers in beach volleyball did a short background on Bondi Beach, where the venue is located. They managed to squeeze it into about thirty seconds, gave a short history, some pretty shots, and did all of this in the middle of the match itself. It worked perfectly. All of NBC's background pieces should work this well. Most don't.
- This has nothing to do with the coverage, but man, Chelsea Clinton gets good seats to everything! I wish I was related to the president. Oh wait. No I don't.
- Tom Brokaw showed up again, this time to highlight George Nissen, the inventor of the trampoline, which this year debuts as an Olympic sport. I've got to admit that although this clearly falls under "fluff" and I categorized it as such, the story was very interesting. I didn't even know Nissen was still alive, much less still able to bounce around on his invention. Not bad for an octogenarian. I'm still against fluff on principle, but Brokaw might be a good enough writer that his stuff would be an exception.
- Jimmy Roberts, however, of "GM presents Olympic Moments," is not such a writer. At least today it was shorter; I only spent 270 seconds thinking about buying a Nissan, GM. I was hopeful right at the beginning because it looked like GM was actually sponsoring some event coverage (U.S. women's softball), but then it quickly turned into a tearjerker about Crystal Fullen, the U.S. batgirl who had cancer. Don't get me wrong, I sympathize with Ms. Fullen, but it's getting to the point where every time I hear Jimmy talk I just want to smack him.
- Bob Costas is finally loosening up. He's mentioned several times in the past few days how he is live even though the events are taped. I think NBC is giving him freer rein since the ratings are down. Tonight he even made the crew laugh when he stumbled twice over the pronunciation of a horse's name from the equestrian events, then said his mispronunciation was no big deal because "who's going to complain? The horse?" Costas working untethered is a good thing. I hope NBC execs don't try to reel him back in.
- Six minutes of fluff promoting tomorrow's track and field events, featuring reporter Tom Hammond who inadvertently made the funniest quote of the day. While talking about the stars of the track and field events and who would stand out, Tom said, "If you had to pick one...you could quickly narrow the list to four." Uh...I thought the point was to narrow the list to one?
- Pieter van den Hoogenband! Pieter van den Hoogenband! Pieter van den Hoogenband! When you watch five hours of Olympic coverage every night, this just starts to get really, really funny. I think I should probably be scared.
- Another fluff piece on Lenny Krayzelburg? Okay, he's won two golds in record times. That's great. But in addition to his events, I have him down for over thirteen minutes of fluff stories! For those of you counting at home (wait, that would be me), that's more prime time coverage for one athlete and his life story than for both archery and judo combined. Look, I'm an American, I'm all for Lenny. But c'mon, let's see some other stuff!
- Track cycling was covered by Phil Liggett. I mention this because someone should get the credit for coverage of that sport being so good. I know there are many more people behind the scenes, but since he's the only one I know, he gets all the praise. I'll let him spread it around.
- Tim Daggett sometimes passes "excited" in his commentary on gymnastics and goes straight into "yelling," but I'll be danged if he didn't pick up on a symptom of all the gymnasts missing on the vault before it was announced it was too low. If he can just rein it in a bit in the future I think he'll be a very good commentator.
- Finally, a little bird told me that in Japan, which has the advantage of almost being in the same time zone as Sydney, there are three channels of Olympic coverage that broadcast simultaneously with no fluff. Gosh, if only NBC owned three channels. Hmmmm....think of the possibilities.
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