Stunt reality shows are often stuffed with celebrities on their way down or those whose names you never really learned in the first place. Rarely has there been such a direct metaphor to their participation as the one shot special “Stars in Danger: the High Dive” (Fox, 8 p.m.).
Its lackluckster cast includes one “Jersey Shore” resident in JWoww, left, two sisters from “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Kim and Kyle Richards, former NFL player Terrell Owens, actor Antonio Sabato Jr., professional surfer Bethany Hamilton and two people who are listed as actors/athletes, Alexandra paul and David Chokachi. Also: Twitch from “So You Think You Can Dance.”
“It’s going to be a disaster,” T.O. says in the Fox promo.
The special, in which the novices learn Olympic style diving, is based on a German show, is contrived to take away the thunder of another network show coming to ABC in March, “Celebrity Diving” — which is based on a Dutch show.
Undercutting their plans is all fair game, Fox entertainment chief Kevin Reilly told critics at the winter press tour Tuesday.
“There have been other copycats on the air that have succeeded quite well in recent history. So I think it’s not a new game to television,” Reilly said. “Ours was ready earlier. We put it on the air. It’s a one time special. If it works, it will be back. We’ll see how it goes. It wasn’t really that cheap thing of getting on first. Frankly, we had open airdates. It really was that simple.”
Blame it on the lack of programming choices in the post holiday period, he said.
“We always have this little bit of a vamp due to the map of the way our schedule lays out. So we end up with this dead air the first couple of weeks of January and it’s very painful. We had an airdate. It was really that simple. I’m not really caught up on trying to beat ABC on this.”