A TBTS Good Idea™: Law and Order: Celebrities on Trial

Lots of coffee flowing at the Brown Tweed compound today, and I’m in a sumatra-fueled, Good-Idea™-generating frenzy. I think I’m also still a little high from bringing down the Scorpions earlier this week. Regardless of the source(s) of this creative burst, today I’m a ravenous, snarling dervish of ideation, chewing my way through pop culture dilemmas like the Tasmanian Devil on angel dust.

So here’s a little something that will solve several problems at once. It’s a new TV show that I’m calling Law and Order: Celebrities on Trial. I’ll start by running down a considerable list of cultural vexations, and then I will discuss how my pixilated salve will soothe every last one of these worrisome electronic-media wounds.

1. Katy Perry already seems to be bored with her singing career, and she seems to like evaluating people, as she indicated this week after serving as a guest judge on American Idol. The arresting, ink-maned, girl-kissing-and-liking-it vixen said, “If I was offered that job as a permanent [Idol judge], I would ditch my [music] career and take on that career.” Basically, it sounds like she needs a new gig, preferably as a TV judge of some sort.

2. NBC needs as many new ideas as it can get to fill the new Leno-sized hole in its 10:00 lineup. However, NBC seems to stand for “No Bankable Concepts” these days. As such, the struggling network at least needs another variation of the reliable Law and Order franchise, preferably one that offers as much innovation as possible within its well-established boundaries. One that’s limitless within its limitations, so to speak.

3. Nancy Grace, Pete Doherty, and whole lot of other celebrities need to be bitch-slapped with the firm backhand of justice.

So, here’s the simple premise of Law and Order: Celebrities on Trial, which I propose to be aired on Mondays at 10 p.m. on NBC.

Law and Order: COT will be a reality show that goes behind the scenes of real celebrity trials that have been transferred to our southern California jurisdiction. It will also be an unscripted courtroom drama that will show arguments and verdicts in the cases themselves.

A two-person panel will judge all cases. One chair will be filled by a real judge, and Katy Perry will sit by his or her side. Perry will have the opportunity to weigh in as she sees fit, but the final powers of determination will rest with the legally qualified judge. Anyone who saw this week’s American Idol can already see the potential for some playful but slightly biting banter, especially when Katy’s sparring partner is someone other than Kara Dioguardi, whose brain mass has both the consistency and the potency of vanilla pudding.

Each episode of Law and Order: COT will be centered on a new celebrity trial, except perhaps during sweeps months, when efforts may be made to mine an especially thorny celebrity legal issue for a dramatic multi-episode nailbiter.

I’ve even come up with ideas for the first two episodes:

Episode 1: Nancy Grace, who is the object of a wrongful death lawsuit for her role in the 2006 suicide of Melinda Duckett. In her role as TV’s most ghoulish inquisitor, Grace incessantly badgered a distraught Duckett when the latter was suspected of criminal involvement in the disappearance of her two-year-old son. Duckett killed herself shortly thereafter, and now her estate is suing Nancy Grace for contributing to the suicide. Because she is Satan, armed with an industrial-sized aerosol can of White Rain hair spray instead of a pitchfork, Grace unsurprisingly remains unapologetic.

I say let’s move the trial to Law and Order: COT. Since Nancy Grace served as a conduit for the millions of people who tried, convicted, and (unfortunately) executed Melinda Duckett in the court of public opinion, doesn’t cosmic justice demand that Grace receive the same treatment? And doesn’t NBC need the ratings?

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Episode 2: Pete Doherty, who was recently arrested for heroin possession…inside a London courtroom! This episode of Law and Order: COT will try Doherty for criminal dumbassery and being a recidivist waster of flesh and oxygen. When you make one decent album and then use it as an excuse to tramp through life leaving behind only dirty needles and groupies you probably would have raped if not for your perpetual case of smack-dick, you deserve to stand trial for your crimes. To Law and Order: COT with you, Doherty, you twit.

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So, Tuesday – Friday is still up to you, NBC, but there’s 20% of your solution for the “what to do at 10:00” problem. You’re welcome.