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OK, some of you guys know how I seem to have this tendency to have terrible nightmares about Keith rather than, uh, pleasanter dreams. Such as that he's my boss at work, and he's yelling at me for not doing what he told me to.
Well, last night's was even more realistic than that, and so believable I awakened in a great state of depression, because it fit with real life much more closely than any scenario in which Keith is my boss!
Here's what it was: It was tomorrow night, Monday, and I had MSNBC on and it was 7:59, and Tweety was doing his usual "time for the Countdown with Keith" thing at the end of Hardball (which we all know he does even when *we* know Alison is filling in), and I was frantically searching at the last second for a tape to plug into my VCR (in my nightmares, I never have a tape ready, which is part of why they're nightmares), when...Hardball ends and Countdown comes on, and...it's nothing like Countdown at all!!!!
Sure, it has the same name...but it is obvious that the entire format of the show has changed. The graphics have changed, the theme music has changed. There's some guy on there as host who I can't even identify. There's also some chick on there who he throws to as a correspondent who helps him cover all the items on the show. Every single item is either like a Keeping Tabs or Oddball piece...no hard, serious news AT ALL. It's either tabloid gossip fodder or news-of-the-weird...nothing else. Nothing much is left of the original show concept but the name...and that's obviously the way it's going to be from now on. After all, you don't change the graphics, theme music, hosts, etc., of a show, and then go back to what you used to do.
And, worst of all, NO KEITH. He has vanished without a trace. No explanation given. He's just...gone.
Of course, we're all outraged. But we're all left to speculate with puzzlement as to what has happened. MSNBC isn't saying a word. People flood them with e-mail and phone calls, with no reply. They e-mail Keith, with no reply. Nothing. Even the cable news show blogs, usually more than eager to explain these kinds of changes to a program, are silent. Even the Olbermannwatch Web site has no intelligence to enable them to bounce up and down with joy and sing, "Ding dong, Olby's show is dead and here's why." It's as if everyone has been gagged and is either unwilling or just plain unable to talk about it.
There are plenty of theories bandied about. They finally dumped Keith for not getting better ratings. Or, GE got mad at his take on the war and demanded he stop covering it, and he said "no way," so they canned him. Or the producers told him they were going to try a new format with nothing but him covering gossip and weird news, and he recognized it as an attempt to silence his criticism of the administration and said "no," and walked.
Thing is, nobody's really sure, and no one has the authoritative truth or can find it out (or if they do know it, they ain't sharin'). All most of us know is, Countdown ain't Countdown, and nobody feels like watching it anymore.
I woke up from this nightmare horrified! And relieved! But trouble is, now I'm going to have to actually tune in tomorrow night and hear that voice asking "Which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow?" before I'm completely convinced it all wasn't real!
Let us pray such a terrible thing NEVER comes to pass, my friends!
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