'Armed & Famous,' a.k.a. La Toya's Last Shot

But then, they've become numbed by CBS's long history of incendiary reality series setups. Way back in summer '01, the network introduced on the Webcast of "Big Brother" a drunken Justin Sebik holding a knife at the throat of a drunken Krista Stegall and inquiring whether she would mind if he killed her. (CBS suits said at that time there was no way they could have seen that coming because Sebik had passed the psychological review with flying colors. Hmmm, that sounds vaguely familiar.)

More recently, CBS brought us "Survivor: Race Wars." And let's not forget "Amish in the City"; granted, that ran on UPN, but it was developed under CBS chief Les Moonves.

We asked one or two critics why they had not become more exercised about this new reality series. Doing so, they noted wearily, only gives the network boatloads of free publicity for the series and does not stop CBS from airing the show (see "Survivor: Race Wars").

Even so, one critic, understandably, wanted to know how much it cost to insure a show in which La Toya Jackson was given a loaded gun.

"Not as high as you would expect," Forman responded, explaining that the "training was real."

Yeah, training of La Toya Jackson, hello.

Forman went on to say that he wanted to make this series to show people how tough it is to be a rookie cop "through the eyes of someone they can identify with."

You know, like La Toya Jackson.

But anyway, the reporters seemed to swallow that one, which is probably what gave Forman the confidence to start laying on the applesauce very thick -- like when he said the skills that make "a good Hollywood star" (we think he meant the C-listers here) also make for a good police officer.

You know, like "walking the red carpet with the paparazzi screaming at you is not bad training for dealing with a domestic dispute."

Yes, he really did say that. And now the picture of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie toiling as social workers on the next "Simple Life" is seared into our brain forever. Thanks for that.