If you've spent four seconds glimpsing Kirstie Alley's Twitter feed, you're aware that the 59-year-old Cheers vet could front a half-hour reality show, or a sixty-minute reality show, or The Truman Show. Her sly use of rhetoric, Caps Lock, and threats to Conan O'Brien's life have made her a retweetable institution, and her upcoming venture to television embraces that unscripted flair and the spirit of her mourned Showtime series Fat Actress. Her new reality series Kirstie Alley's Big Life also features unexplained pet lemurs, and you can draw your own assumptions about souvenirs from Lisa Marie Presley's latest baptismal voyage to Madagascar. The awesome A&E trailer is after the jump.
The best quote really chooses itself. "I think it's stupid to say, you know, 'I'm full-figured.' Fuck you. You're fucking fat." The wayward Jenny Craig spokeswoman is already much more candid than her first foray into "reality" television -- this appearance on Match Game, when she was "an interior designer from Wichita, Kansas." We've come a long way, or something.
This trailer reminds me of Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List's sublime first season when Griffin didn't feel obligated to arrange celebrity stunts or give each episode a single story arc. There's spontaneity here, plus a guileless star and a more-than-halfway decent supporting cast. (But could that assistant put a cap on his humility? He invented Kirstie's Twitter! Self-exalt away, young one!) Hopefully the show doesn't cling to a Biggest Loser hero's tale and lets all its seemingly hilarious elements thrive on their own. Like that dancing "chubby buddy." He's good news, I can tell.
At some point, however, I want to see a powerhouse episode where an intervention is staged, and Kirstie is confronted about exercise by her kids, a concerned paparazzo, and an inconsolable chinchilla. After that dismal Jackson family series, A&E's reality division appears to be back at its fighting weight.
The verdict: Kirstie's got 75 pounds to lose, and a whole new fanbase to gain.