worst. rerun. ever.

September 7th, 2006


I just saw an ad saying that on September 11th the Today Show will be re-broadcasting their show from September 11, 2001.

I didn’t want to see it the first time, even though I couldn’t take my eyes off the TV. Being a native New Yorker with family still there, and living in between Dulles Airport and the Pentagon at the time, I was mostly concerned about what the hell was going on in both both places. If I thought I needed to see the frequently faulty coverage (on the DC stations at least) of 9/11 again, I would have TiVo’d it and run off some DVDs for some card-carrying masochists.

What NBC is doing feels no different than ESPN Classic replaying past World Series games. I just don’t understand why anyone who was either in the thick of the attacks, who couldn’t have cared less, or who was somewhere in the motional middle would want to see this.

So if you happen to be watching NBC Monday morning and see planes hitting the Twin Towers, it is not, I repeat, not a Civil War re-enactment type of deal, but I’m sure we can look forward to that next year.



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  • cauley

    Well said. You can’t expect America to, say, not watch television Monday, though, can you? It’s unthinkable! It’ll be a total– but moving, definitely moving– ratings home run!

    Seriously, how can this be anything but crass? Will they have somber tourists standing outside their glass studio holding somber signs during the somber news breaks? No? Really? Tiny flags then, yes?

  • http://www.genecowan.com/blog Gene

    I spent that morning in the basement of the 4H Center in Chevy Chase at a business retreat, frustrated watching the coverage because of the insensitivity of it all — when the first tower collapsed, one of the anchors felt it was necessary to actually say “you are witnessing the deaths of thousands of people, live.” I wanted to kick the screen in.
    I watched, feeling helpless, because I was stuck there across town worrying about my dog, alone in my house just down the street from the Pentagon.
    We’ve all been saturated with the pictures of that day, and the fact that Today wants to repeat it simply shows that they have nothing responsible to say. Why in the world do we want to relive that day? 
    Boy, the Republicans are just reaping the dividends on their fearmongering with this just-before-midterms orgy of September 11 propaganda, eh?

  • Jimmy

    Wonderful. So,.. NOW can I start healing, or was I already supposed to have done that during one of the other made-for-TV memorials that have popped up over the four prior anniversaries?
    It will be interesting to see if they “edit for time constraints” any of the original facts or on-scene reporting that might conflict with what the “official” story has become over the years leading up to the commission report. You know, all the little things that we seem to have forgotten like eyewitness reports of secondary explosions in the towers and the fact that there was absolutely no damage to the grass in front of the Pentagon, where we are to believe a 757 was flown with such surgical precision that it punched a single 16ft diameter hole in the wall, into which all portions of the wings, engines and tail section disappeared, leaving not so much as a scratch on either side of it.
    I think they should just save themselves the trouble of all that editing and just employ some big name Hollywood types to put together a big budget dramatization of the original 9/11/01 Today Show. That whole “based on true events” angle is big with the 18-45 male demo, and offers instant street cred.
    In any event, if you find NBC’s tactics a bit too crass, but you still want to be part of the United States of Nostalgia, you can always stream real-time 9/11/01 coverage that CNN is offering on their website.
    But to be perfectly straight, if you really want to get that flavor back in your mouth, I suggest you hit the mnftiu.com site and start the “Get Your War On” strips from the beginning. It snaps you back to that time and place so hard you start smelling shit.
    “Oh Yeah! Operation Enduring Freedom is in the House!”

  • http://incomplete.net Jon Land

    Slight correction… I just saw the ad again. They will be re-broadcasting NBC’s full 9/11 Today show on MSNBC in real time, not NBC. So while my ESPN Classic analogy is even stronger now, it’s still a truly horrible idea.

    Although Don Imus is usually in that time slot, so it’s tough to say whether or not MSNBC is doing a public service or not.

    Jimmy – About the Pentagon… I agree, that was very weird. A lot of people who’ve never seen the Pentagon up close and personal don’t realize how short of a building is really is. I still don’t get how someone, especially an unexperienced pilot could have flown a plane into it and hit it square-on the side. The side that happened to be under construction already and had relatively few people in it.

  • Jim

    Great, just great. I was really hoping to get back those feelings of helplessness and despair and the complete loss of hope or any sense that life has meaning. Is it too much to ask that they don’t follow it up with a Paris Hilton update, and to set aside their orgy of Meredith Vieira promos?

    I hate Bush, and think he is definitely the worst president certainly in my lifetime, and probably the worst and most ill-equipped ever. And his administration reeks of corruption and power-mongering. However, I am not very big on conspiracy theories. Does it seem incredulous that a jet could crash into a building, leaving what appears to be minimum damage from the outside? Sure. It also seems completely unbelievable to me that a tornado could rip a house to shreds, while leaving the one right next door virtually untouched. But it happens.

  • Jimmy

    Well, that settles it then. It was a tornado that hit the Pentagon.

  • http://incomplete.net Jon Land

    I’m not really a conspiracy theorist myself, but I play one on the ‘net.

  • Jim

    Maybe it was a tornado, sent by barometric fascists.

  • http://incomplete.net Jon Land

    Incidentally, the next hurricane will be named “Hurricane Hitler”, and if you evacuate from it, you’ll just be appeasing it and it’ll grow much. much stronger.