I admit that after just one viewing, I'm addicted to NBC's DATELINE recurring "To Catch a Predator" series of exposes, in which online pedophiles are lured to some location expecting to have sex with a minor... only to turn up on network TV and ultimately busted. Hey, I wanted to watch THE ARISTOCRATS, but my wife got to the TV first.

What's the attraction? First and foremost, the parade of human oddities that is the American sexual predator... ex-cons, high school teachers, home health aides, married men, fathers, sons of cops, dwarves, the painfully thin, the freakishly obese, the heavily tattooed, mouth-breathers, knucklewalkers... and amazingly, none of these guys bolt out the door when they see the show's host standing there where they expected to see a nubile 13 year old girl (or boy). No, they sit there and nervously answer questions about their intentions and deny, deny, deny they were ever going to go through with it, even though they practically have the condom rolled up on their chubby. It's like the Watergate hearings with much more use of the word "penis."

As a father, I'm horrified. As an observer of human frailty, I'm hopelessly addicted. I can't wait for the next show, taped down in Florida.

Any other takers out there? And what are you wearing?

Shameful Secret Sharing Session Starting.

Me, too.

I assume SOME must bolt, they just don't televise them. Though, if that's the case, you assume they would -- would make for good TV.

As a father of 3 young small ones, and the uncle of a MYSPACE -addicted 13 year old girl (who claims to be 19 on her profile and from Bevery Hills), I too am horrified. That's notjust hyperbole, I'm truly scared for all of our children.

You know when I saw "My shameful secret" in your subject line, I was scared you were going to reveal you are featured on one of these. :D

I've seen parts II and III in full. I caught half of part IV last week and missed part V last night (sweeps!). The shows are highly disturbing on both ends. Obviously the suspects are creepy as hell. But so is the network anchor popping out as "moral authority" and browbeating the suspects before they are arrested. The scariest thing for me is that in part III they mentioned how lots of police stations turned down the offer to work with the online crusaders until they found out that TV was involved.

DATELINE used to space these out but now it appears they might make it a regular feature (two aired in the last week).

Hey, the browbeating is my favorite part. My only regret is that DATELINE can't get Simon Cowell to do it.

"Look at you... you're fat, your legs are too short for your body, you're wearing an Izod shirt tucked into sweat pants... and you call that a moustache? You're path-etic!"

Human sexuality is such a minefield, especially in America. We just naturally expect every citizen to have the proper amount of sexual interest and ability... any more and you're a pervert, any less and you're a eunuch or frigid. The media exhorts such an impossibly high standard of beauty via celebrities who, with their personal trainers and their liposuction and BoTox and teeth bleaching (and that's just Ellen Degeneres), make regular people feel more and more unworthy. In a way, my heart goes out to these poor bastards, who are so ground down that they can only get off by the idea of being with a child, who can't possibly see them for the losers they are. (This idea actually makes no sense to me... kids are ruthless critics of human shortcomings-- I'd be terrified to know how I rate with a 13-year-old, boy or girl!) But in another way, I want to take these guys out on a boat and sink it because I don't think these impulses can be turned around. I just don't think you go from the statutory rape of a minor to a happy-ever-after with someone your own age. Even THE WOODSMAN didn't believe that.

That's what really weirded me out about that show. Especially the one guy who showed up with two 6-packs of Mike's Hard Lemonade and some beer, then claimed that he brought it all for himself and swore up and down he wouldn't have let the girl drink any of it.

Then there was the school teacher, that's just scary.

These shows are a sad and fascinating investigation of the shadow side of human sexuality and the consequences of abuse. Many of these men are perpetuating their own abuse pattern and I love that they're getting a huge kick in the arse and psyche and soul. And their deer in the headlights eyes are creepy as hell! And the schmuck who fell for the sting more than once.........pathetic.

Yikes! From the makers of Video Fireplace comes Video Stocks and Pillaries!

And the Department of Homeland Security...

Do these people have to give their permission to have their 'segment' shown on TV? I'm surprised they'd give it...

I'm amazed at how seemingly prevalent this is in our society but I suppose it always has been - its just now easier to nab these aberations because of the Internet. Plus we - as a society - aren't prone to burying our heads in the sand when it comes to stuff like this...like we were in the not so distant past.

Strangely, I feel sorry for some of these lunatics...

Oh, I absolutely feel sorry for them. I'd feel sorry for a rabid dog, too. And while I don't advocate shooting pedophiles on sight, I admit I am in a quandry about what to do with them. I sometimes feel that optimistic psychologists are more enthusiastic about the challenge presented in "curing" a pedophile than they are about the practicability of welcoming them back into society.

I said to my wife last night, "You know, if only the parents of these pedophiles had encouraged a healthy fascination with horror movies..." Seriously, you're not going to be crossing state lines to have sex with a minor when you're trying to stretch your paycheck to get all those box sets and Sideshow action figures.

Although there was a study released awhile back that attempted to prove that STAR TREK fans were more likely to be pedophiles than...non-Trekkies, I guess? Needless to say, it got the Trekkies' phasers up in a bundle.

If this is an insidious psycholgical disease without the hope of a "cure," then there is absolutely no way they should be welcomed back into society...the majority of these "monsters" fall back on old behavior no matter how much "curing" they go through. Whether these folks - male and female - are wired this way or whether they were victims of horrible abuse as children themselves - I don't want 'em in my neighborhood.

Well, TO CATCH A PREDATOR V was on last night and it was their sleaziest yet on both ends of the spectrum. The Perverted Justice people bother me as they have come off extremely self righteous this entire series. And this time Dateline felt the need to have a plate of cookies on a table which the offendors could eat if they so desired. Then Chris Hansen got to deliver smug lines like, "Enjoying your cookie?" or "How does that cookie taste?"

The whole time I was really disturbed by the process (as I am each time I watch these shows) and how Dateline referred to this as a phenomenon sweeping the nation. No doubt these guys had ill intentions but they are basically being arrested for a thought crime. That is an awfully slippery slope in my opinion. And, naturally, we will continue to slip next week with TO CATCH A PREDATOR VI (although NBC has now dispensed with the Roman numerals). Be there or be square!

Not really. Showing up for sex with a minor after soliciting them online is a felony.

Ah, that makes more sense. But it also begs the question about what the online crusaders are doing. The Dateline show insinuated that they initiated the sex talk. I'm not defending these creeps at all, obviously they were trolling for this kinda stuff in chat rooms, but the Dateline show gives you so little info to go on and provides only small portions of chat log info.

You may have noticed corporate synergy at work on NBC's LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT this week. The SVU cops captured a pedophile by...ta-da...posing as a teenage boy online and luring him to a public meeting place. Except it wasn't NBC News waiting for him to show up...it was Chris Meloni and Ice-T.

I wonder if this story concept would have happened this week if not for the DATELINE segments.

I would imagine the staff of Perverted Justice didn't come to their jobs via Craig's List and that they are, for the most part, victims of sexual abuse and understandably zealous to nab pedophiles. And I'll give them that. There's something seriously wrong here, when a guy brings his toddler to an expected sexual encounter with an underage boy... where was that one headed? I can't believe they didn't spend more time plumbing the worst case potential of that scenario.

I also imagine that the people who founded Perverted Justice are well aware of the irony imbedded in their business name. They're out to stop pedophiles and issues of possible entrapment are less of a concern.

Soon to be a series: To Catch an Intruder

Calling Out the Posse to Fight Illegal Immigration


It has programming potential!

I don't begrudge the pervert busters their rough justice, but it's not my idea of entertainment and I can't help being reminded of this:

I caught a couple of minutes of this last night. I hadn't heard of it before, and I watched enough to figure out what was going on.

No offense to anyone, but I can't imagine the circumstances where I would ever watch this again.

I can't help getting the feeling that some members of the general public are going to start doing their own impromptu "sting operations" -- except that the fate of the molestors in these situations will be more than just embarassment on network tv.

Mike expresses more explicitly what I was suggesting.

I'll admit to a degree of fascination with foibles of unwitting fools and losers caught in the lens, but I'd rather watch morally unfraught 'Candid Camera' or Jackass for that. A rerun of Cops if I'm really that hard up for criminal stupid pet tricks

This particular variation seems a mite too close to Medieval 'Shame Culture', and pillories and stockades as a previous post-er alluded, and forgive me for imagining that a number of the people who watch and enjoy this series also buy and profoundly appreciate those mass-marketed candid videos of barely legal age College Girls going wild on Spring Breaks

I posted an image of Fritz Lang's. We can pity poor Lorre without forgiving him, but what really came to mind were the images the same director came up with of wrongly accused lynch-mania victim Spencer Tracy in FURY, and the psychopathological consequences undergone by that formerly blameless innocent turned vengeance-crazy sadist after being violated unjustly. As already pointed out, a number of the perpetrators in this particular set of cases were victims once upon a time. A number of the avengers were too, as also pointed out. That's a strange, unwholesome equation I think, one that deserves analysis but not prime-time, documentary exploitation.

Ultimately, this is full circle exploitation at its most unsavory. Reminds me of the old saw that goes something like this:

"Before you point your finger -- remember, you got three more pointing right back at you..."

I hardly watch any tv these days, but I caught part of this show last week. It was somewhat fascinating in what it was revealing about how many pedophiles are really out there, but then I realized the show itself was simply a parade of one pedophile after the next being caught - all to be viewed as "entertainment". It reminded me of that show "CHEATERS" which in its day was pretty sick as we watched people being ambushed and relationships being ruined. All in the name of entertainment! I must admit that I watched some of those CHEATERS episodes some years ago and found them amusing to a degree. So what do tv producers create next: a show about ambushing pedophiles instead of cheaters. I'm sure the intentions behind this Dateline series were all admirable and capturing these creeps is definitely a good thing, but do we really need a weekly entertainment show about it (of course, its passing itself off as "news")? I guess the ratings are good, though, and there is always an appeal in voyeur-type reality-tv where you can sit safely on your couch and say "wow, I'm glad that's not me!" NBC seems to have a new hit on their hands.

What's next, a weekly reality murder show? I mean, what's the next crime worse than pedophilia that the networks can exploit for profit?

Maybe have Chris Hansen ambush the pedophiles AFTER they get what they came for? They'll have to up the ante somehow. I can almost hear the insufferably smug Hansen already: "So...did ya have a good time?" I'm not defending the pedophiles, but Hansen asking how the cookies were really rubbed me the wrong way. It's proof positive that this is entertainment--not news. At all.

I've watched this a few times, and I have to admit, it does have a train-wreck fascination to it. I see TO CATCH A PREDATOR flaming out quickly. It'll just be the same thing after a while.

First, an aside about CHEATERS-- notice how sometimes the "unsuspecting" cheating couple, when ambushed by Tommy or Joey and the deceived spouse, will already be wired with mic-packs. It was in the Texas press years ago, when the show was regional, that people were paid by the show to pretend to be the boyfriend/girlfriend of complete strangers.

Now, as for combining the DATELINE feature with the CHEATERS approach, it's already been done by the BBC-- a recent series, THE HUNT FOR BRITAIN'S PAEDOPHILES had a 24-hours episode that begins with an early morning search and ends the next day with the news that the suspect had committed suicide in the woods! And because the guy unexpectedly gave his permission for the film crew to record the search, he's interviewed (without counsel) extensively.

(If you believe that someone's living space can be a revealing look into the clutter in their mind, this guy's crib speaks volumes. Also, he lives with a trio of free-range ferrets, and the apartment reeks so badly the cops have to keep going out for air.)

In the interview, the guy made a cogent observation about news coverage of pedophilic acts: it's a source of great stimulation to people like him, especially when they're incarcerated. Anyway, the show was absoluetly harrowing, and I don't know if I'll watch any more of it.

P.S. The Beeb also had a special called something like COME HOME, GARY GLITTER, where the correspondent went around the world trying to find Glitter in the countries known for child prostitution.

I may be wrong, but I believe the "predator" has to initiate any sex talk for it to hold up in court. If the cop-posing-as-a-teen initiates any sex talk, I think that'd be entrapment. It's similar in that case to prostitution stings, where the undercover cop has to wait for the John to initiate any talk of paying for a sexual activity for it to lead to an arrest (I believe).

Vincent

I have a duo of free-range ferrets...

Of course, they're descented and I clean up after them, but still...

Vincent

Descented from what... rats? :P

Alright, I'm calling BS on this show, based on the 5/17 episode.


Regarding "crazytrini85," the guy who showed up and stripped in the laundry room.

--Why did they have a towel ready for him? How did they know he'd strip?

--Did he walk in the house with the Cool Whip? I don't think so. But there it is, sitting on the table while Chris Hansen (who's starting to make Geraldo look tolerable by comparison) gives him the third degree. Why was the Cool Whip PUT there? Tabloid sensationalism, that's why.


And is the cop in the tree camouflage get-up REALLY necessary? There's cops all around. And where was this guy last week?

Didn't he agree to do it in the chat? And they had whoever he was on the phone with promise him to do it. I'm sure Dateline hoped for the "best" and put that towel there. As for the Cool Whip, I don't think he said he was bringing it over but just requested it. Then again, haven't we all done that? :)

As for the cop in the camouflage, I'm waiting for the Dateline where they use that trick on white collar criminals bilking people out of millions. I'm sure it freaked out plenty of pervs knowing that SWAMP THING was coming to get them for their sins.

I should clarify: Yes, he did say he'd strip, but how did they know he'd do it for sure? I'm sure they were hoping for the best. I'm surprised they didn't go for the more exploitative option of letting him sit there nude the whole time. What do they care? It's not THEIR chair...

SWAMP THING!!!

I find Chris Hansen's wisecracks to be funnier than most TV comedies. He pops into the room and says, "Would you like some milk with those cookies?" while maintaining a poker face. This is entertainment, obviously, not hard news.

I'm starting to imagine Chris Hansen busting me on some of my pecadilloes...

The setting: A Best Buy outlet in Southern California.

"Hey, how'ya doing?"
"Uh... okay."
"Whatcha got there?"
"The new Blue Underground disc of BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE."
"Don't you already own that movie?"
"Uh... yeah."
"Don't you own it on video cassette?"
"Yes."
"Don't you own it on Region 1 DVD?"
"Yeah, I got that one."
"Didn't you buy the British disc, too?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you've seen this on the big screen as well..."
"Yes."
"So, the question in my mind is... do you really need to buy it... again?"
"Well, the thing is... the earlier transfers were kind of incomplete."
"Incomplete how?"
"There's a shot of the killer cutting the panties off one victim..."
"Her panties."
"Yeah. And they actually have the shots reversed, so..."
"So how many seconds of film are we talking about?"
"Oh... two. Three."
"Two or three seconds of film. And that's reason to keep buying the same movie over and over again."

Uncomfortable pause.

"I guess not."
"Can't you just see this latest transfer on rental from Netflix..."
"I could do that, I guess."
"... instead of spending $30 that could go towards the education of your daughter?"
"I guess."
"How old is your daughter?"
"Eight months. Almost nine."
"A nine month old baby at home... and you're buying a movie you already own at least three copies of. Do you think that's right?"
"No, I... I need help. Obviously."
"What would your wife think of you buying this movie for the fourth time?"
"She'd kill me."
"Hmm. Maybe she should kill you."
"Yeah, maybe that would be best."

And so on.

Thanks Richard! Now I will forever have Chris Hansen's voice embedded as my conscience.

You need that part in just in case we need a re-run during "sweeps week".

Well DATELINE is really milking it now. They are almost as bad as George Lucas.

Can the DVD box set of DATELINE: TO CATCH A PREDATOR: UNCENSORED be far off?

I'm just hoping it isn't TO CATCH A PREDATOR: TOO HOT FOR TV! And I'm only buying if it comes with a Chris Hansen audio commentary.

I don't watch prime time television but I have seen numerous clips of the busts on the TODAY show. One does not have to be a defender of sexual predators to be appalled by the sleazy appeal and self-righteous tone of this program. It's worse than entrapment; it's thought crime. At no time was a minor involved, and the only "crime" was that the fools allowed themselves lured into a house by actresses posing as little girls. It’s bad enough that these pathetic losers, who are obviously unarmed and non-violent, get tackled and slammed to the ground by a team of macho cops who take unconcealed joy in inflicting pain. But having to endure the prissy host with his reproachful frown and scolding questions is nauseating. If there’s any justice in the world one day this guy will be caught in bed with the baby-sitter or the paper-boy.

Which should begin...

"Hi, how's it going? Why don't you have a seat..."

Simply a classic post. :D :lol:

Spot on.