Lucy Spiller (Courtney Cox) is the cold and calculating editor-in-chief of DrrtNow magazine, a typically lurid tabloid crossed with the gentle celebrity worshiping of People. With the help of ace functioning schizophrenic best friend Don Konkey (Ian Hart) she manages to make or break careers with the raising of an eyebrow, everyone in Hollywood either fawning uncontrollably at the woman’s feet or desperately trying to find a way to bring her down. But this obsession with the darker side of celebrity comes at a price, all of Lucy’s own secrets starting to come out of the closet to maybe become a victim of the very monster she herself helped create.

CRITIQUE

From the twisted mind of creator Matthew Carnahan (who is not to be confused with The Kingdom and Lions for Lambs screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan), the FX series “Dirt” is about as lurid and as grotesque as cable television can possibly get. On the plus side, it’s also damn entertaining, all of it anchored with iron-fisted authority by Cox (who, in each and every episode, is clearly enjoying herself).

There is something revoltingly seductive about watching Lucy peel the Hollywood celebrity onion with such unabashed relish. From controlling the lives of second tier movie stars like Holt McLaren (Josh Stewart) and Julia Mallory (Laura Allen), to wrapping her conniving boss Brent Barrow (Jeffrey Nordling) around her little finger as if he were tissue paper, the woman is devil in a red dress and stiletto heels. And while she is a stickler for journalistic integrity (something I’m sure real tabloids like the internet’s TMZ or the newspaper stand’s Star magazine could in reality care less about), she’s also not above manipulating those facts in order to further her own narcissistic agenda.

It is when the series revels in this heartlessly bitchy world it is its most entertaining. There is something gleefully wicked in watching all of this nascent nastiness played out onscreen, so much of Lucy’s adventures in tabloid journalism so deliciously ugly and wondrously detestable you just can’t help but watch in gleeful fascination. All of this beautiful nastiness comes to gloriously disgusting high right about episode 10 when a teenage temptress and her god-fearing father attempt to hold the magazine hostage over allegations of underage sex. Cox’s reaction to the whole miss is positively priceless, and while the final outcome isn’t really a surprise watching it unfold with such giddy repugnance actually is.

Still, all of this nascent nastiness can get a little old. More, it can sometimes go a bit too far. There is far too much callousness towards the audience at times here (as in episode nine when a semi-major character is given a brutally abhorrent exit, or in the season final when Don’s delusions start becoming borderline offensive for anyone even remotely familiar with the true horrors of mental illness), and if I didn’t know any better I’d even go so far as to say Carnahan hates his characters almost as much as Lucy hates being lied to.

And yet, I like “Dirt”, sometimes a lot, and I find myself kind of wondering what the writers have up their sleeves for season two. Cox is borderline brilliant, Hart is surprisingly affecting as the talented yet falling apart at the seams Konkey and newcomer Allen is shockingly good as the self-destructing Mallory. Besides, any show with the gall to reunite former “Friends” stars Cox and Jennifer Aniston and then have them engage in a full-on lesbian-tinged verbal battle of the wills can’t be all bad, even if the characters both of them are playing certainly –and thankfully – are.

THE VIDEO

“Dirt” is presented in its original 1.78:1 anamorphic Widescreen.

THE AUDIO

“Dirt” is presented in English (Dolby Digital 5.1) audio with optional English subtitles.

SPECIAL FEATURES

The special feature aren’t that interesting. There is the usual assortment of outtakes and deleted scenes, most of which aren’t very interesting and don’t really merit watching more than once. There are also four featurettes only one of which (“Celebrity Couple Gets Dirty,” a look real life husband and wife Courtney Cox and David Arquette and their travails to get the show on the air) is all that interesting.

The others don’t really offer much one way or the other. There is a two-plus minute discussion with Carnahan where he talks about his ideas for season two (none of which are sound all that promising, to be perfectly honest), a profile of Don Konkey (“Through a Lens Darkly”) that doesn’t do much other than say how great an actor Ian Hart is (no disagreement there) and a truly awful one on legitimate tabloids (“Tabloid Wars: Totally True Stories from the Celebrity Trenches”) that is nowhere as interesting or as probing as it probably thinks it is.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Then again, most people don’t watch DVD sets of television programs for the special features (other than probably “Lost” and maybe “Heroes”), they’re checking these sets out to see the program’s stories played out from start to finish without interruption. On that front, “Dirt” is definitely a success. Once I put the first disc in I compulsively couldn’t help but slam each and every succeeding one into my Toshiba HD player one after the other. The show is addictive in the extreme, and no matter how nasty or how awful it got I couldn’t help but want to know where Cox and Carnahan were going to take things next.