‘Special Forces’: retreads in boot camp
Now here’s something new and dreadful. Actually, it’s not even new. “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-14) assembles a gaggle of 16 famous-ish personalities to undergo rigorous training exercises designed for elite military commandos.
The group includes social influencers, former reality stars and athletes. Look for former Mets catcher and MLB Hall of Famer Mike Piazza, odious reality star Kate Gosselin and Anthony Scaramucci, a former Wall Street executive who served for 10 tumultuously chaotic days in the Trump administration. Here he receives the kind of reputation laundering long associated with “Dancing With the Stars.”
There’s also NFL veteran Danny Amendola; “Sporty” Spice Girl Mel B; longtime “Bachelorette” Hannah Brown; Food Network personality Tyler Florence; NBA veteran Dwight Howard; singer/songwriter Montell Jordan; skier Gus Kenworthy; gymnast and Olympic medalist Nastia Liukin, soccer star Carli Lloyd; “7th Heaven” survivor Beverley Mitchell; former Miss USA Kenya Moore; reality TV physician-for-hire Dr. Drew Pinsky; and “Zoey 101” star and celebrity sibling Jamie Lynn Spears. Oh my!
Over the course of the series, this “celebrity” cast will be subject to the rigors of military toughness under the short-tempered tutelage of an elite team of ex-Special Forces operatives.
If this all sounds like another example of corporate media cheering on the militarization of entertainment and the trivialization of real military sacrifice, it is. It’s also been tried before.
Way back in 2012, Mark Burnett launched the NBC series “Stars Earn Stripes.” It also asked vaguely famous faces — like that of Dean Cain — to undergo military training and exercises. It was hosted by former NATO commander and presidential hopeful Wesley Clark and former “Dancing With the Stars” co-host Samantha Harris. Clark’s reputation as a serious person took some substantial collateral damage.
Now and then, the juxtaposition of reality show fakery and the grim realities of war zone conditions seemed to be in appalling taste.
In 2012, a committee of nine Nobel Peace Prize winners wrote to the network asking NBC to reconsider its glorification and trivialization of the horrors of war. Their words were eloquent and damning. “This program.
› continues and expands on an inglorious tradition of glorifying war and armed violence. Real war is down in the dirt deadly. People — military and civilians — die in ways that are anything but entertaining.”
The same could be said for “Special Forces,” a series that seems particularly clueless given the daily reports of carnage from Ukraine.
Any series that glamorizes war and revives the career of Kate Gosselin deserves our scorn. An early contender for worst new show of 2023.