VH1's I Love the 80's was one of the greatest specials ever in the history of television. Of course I Love the 90's came next. After that the channel went back further for I Love the 70's even though a better title could have been I Kinda Like the 70's because "Love" is a little strong for that decade. But the huge mistake was when VH1 produced I Love the New Millennium. First off, stupid title. Sure we never landed on a title for the decade, but man up and definitively call it something. Even worse it aired in 2008 before the decade was even over. Not only that, the decade pretty much sucked worse than the seventies.
A couple years back National Geographic Channel debuted its own retrospective The '80s: The Decade That Made Us which was a more newsy, macro version of I Love the 80's. Not surprising they followed that up with The '90s: The Last Great Decade?. The simple answer was yes. Much like I Love the New Millennium, I feared that another in the NGC special in the series would be unnecessary. But tonight sees the premiere of The 2000's: A New Reality. At least they actually waited until after the decade was over to produce it.
With all that happened surrounding the Supreme Court last month, it is actually a little funny that the special starts off with liberals like Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi decrying that radical un-elected judges decided who got to be president while conservatives like Bill O'Reilly commended the Supreme Court for following the word of the Constitution. What a difference fifteen years makes.
I figured going in this retrospective would be more depressing than the two previous but watching the four hour but all the bad news stories just kept on getting compounding: Elian Gonzalez, USS Cole, hanging chads, Chandra Levy, 9/11, anthrax, Tora Bora, Beltway Sniper, Enron, the Iraq War, the Southeast Asian tsunami, Janet Jackson's nipple, Abu Ghraib,Hurricane Katrina, global warming, Lehman Brothers. Sure tails of Survivor, Napster, iPod, The Osbournes, YouTube, and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy are sprinkled in but it is hard not to be glad that decade is over after watching A New Reality.
Back again as narrator is Rob Lowe. We also get first hand accounts of the biggest stories by politicians Dick Cheney, Nancy Pelosi, talking heads Bill O'Reilly, Geraldo Rivera, entertainers Randy Jackson, Adam McCay, people who where on the USS Cole when it was attacked, survivors of the tsunami and Katrina, and even the whistle-blowers behind Enron and Abu Ghraib. The 2000s: A New Reality probably is something airing too early (we should probably wait at least a decade before we should take stalk in history) but it is something that will hold up for future generations to understand just how depressing and wild the decade was.
The 2000s: A New Reality premieres tonight at 9:00 on the National Geographic Channel and concludes tomorrow also starting at 9:00.
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