TVSquad

Before it got self-referential and started playing up its own celebrity, NBC Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" series was a distinct guilty pleasure. It did the heart good to see some genuinely depraved lowlifes humiliated on nationwide TV before heading off to prison where they'd no doubt meet predators more adept than themselves.

Meanwhile, with so many in Hollywood reaching out to defend confessed child rapist Roman Polanski, It was inevitable that some clever video editor would bring "Predator" host Chris Hansen and moviedom's most prominent pedophile together for a brief interview on YouTube (video after the jump).

The exchange hits all of the "Predator" chestnuts as, whenever Hansen ambushed one of these depraved disasters, there'd be excuses and denials galore. Sadly, Polanski outlived the real "To Catch a Predator" as lame lawsuits involving tired notions of due process and entrapment ruined the fun for everyone.

NBC quietly canceled the Chris Hansen-starring reality vehicle To Catch A Predator. Now it is planning to launch a similar sort of program in War Criminals which tracks down war criminals (obviously) and arrests them on camera.

Didn't these guys learn their lesson the first time around? Vigilante justice with a camera is still vigilante justice, and vigilante justice only works well in the comic books and movies. It works on television too, but only in the scripted variety and not like this.

Granted, prostitution with a camera is called pornography, but that's legal. It has a system to govern it and make sure it doesn't reach children or other inappropriate people (how effectively it works is another discussion). Even the government has expressed concerns about televised sting operations interfering in the legal apprehension of criminals.

While this may bring some short-term ratings to NBC, I don't see it lasting long. The last thing they need is another Bill Conradt-style lawsuit.

If you're like me (you have my deepest sympathy), you don't have a dog in this Sunday's hunt.

Thanks to the Arizona Cardinals' first appearance this weekend, my hometown team, the New Orleans Saints, will now be one of only five left in the NFL that have never made a Super Bowl appearance. Three if you don't count the expansion clubs.

So if you're a Cardinals fan and don't have the stomach to endure their slow, agonizing and inevitable defeat at the hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers, here are some alternative shows you can watch instead of the Super Bowl.

Chris Hansen is one of the most feared men on the planet. In terms of scary, there's Kim Jong-il, Christopher Walken and then Mr. Hansen. If you see his face, it most likely means you are going to jail ... and it will be televised nationally.

If you don't know who Hansen is, you haven't been watching Dateline's To Catch a Predator -- the best thing to happen to Dateline since Stone Phillips. The special segment focuses on finding, luring, embarrassing and arresting suspected pedophiles. It is a spectacle that can only be described as eerily addictive.

Recently, Predator faced criticism and legal issues, when a suspect from the show committed suicide. Now, they face an even bigger challenge: ABC News.

NBC and the group Perverted Justice have worked together several times for Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" series, but now the network is being sued after one man in Murphy, Texas shot himself while police and camera crews surrounded his home.

The man, Bill Conradt Jr., an assistant county prosecutor, had been accused of engaging in a sexually explicit chat with an adult posing as a thirteen year old boy. Two dozen other men from the same area were also arrested, but the district attorney refused to prosecute, citing the involvement of amateurs in the sting operation. The city manager was also fired for allowing the sting to take place without permission from the mayor or city council.

I've never been a fan of Dateline's "To Catch A Predator." Despite helping to put sexual predators behind bars, the series is tainted by egregious spectacle, and recently resulted in the suicide of one man in Murphy, Texas. Consequently, the district attorney has refused to prosecute the other twenty-four men who were caught in the sting.

Readers can discuss in the comments the value of one man's life over that of anyone else's, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. What I'm saying is, despite selling the show as some kind of humanitarian crusade, reporter Chris Hansen and the producers behind "To Catch A Predator" both want and need that moment of public humiliation for the show to work and for people to watch. They're putting out a fire, yes, but they're doing it by throwing manure on it.

NBC is trying to save money everywhere.

Longtime Dateline host Stone Phillips is being let go by the network, for money reasons. Phillips' current co-host, Ann Curry, will continue to do the show. I guess NBC wants someone in there who is already under contract and does other stuff at the network. Curry is the newsreader on The Today Show too. She'll be joined by various NBC reporters as rotating co-hosts.

No word on what Phillips will do now. I wonder why they didn't just keep him on and have him do other things at the network and MSNBC? Maybe he didn't want to, who knows.

This Just In has a new video up featuring some hysterical outtakes from Dateline's "To Catch A Predator" series.

Okay, it's not really Dateline, and that's not really Chris Hansen, but it is really, really funny. The swearing is bleeped, but you might want to be careful about watching it at work or church anyway. Also, you shouldn't bring your wireless laptop to church, that's just rude. Jesus doesn't come to your house and play his banjo* while you're trying to watch TV, does he? That's right, they don't**.

Anyway, I placed the video after the jump.

[via CC Insider]

*I belong to a religious sect that believes Jesus was in an folk band

**This sect also believes Jesus was made of several smaller Jesuses, like Voltron

Dateline NBC's journalistic integrity is being called into question after it was revealed that the network paid an organization to set up a pedophile sting for an ongoing investigation titled "To Catch A Predator." An organization called "Perverted Justice" was paid by NBC to set up a sting operation in which sexual predators were lured to a house in Ohio where they were caught by officials. NBC is insisting it did nothing wrong, and that Web-based crimes require new ways of approaching stories. Others disagree, claiming that by money exchanging hands the credibility of the story was affected.

The USA Today piece also had this quote: "NBC said it received at least 15,000 letters or e-mails in response to its February story. Not one parent complained about the journalistic methods used to film the piece, [Dateline NBC executive producer David Corvo] said." Well, they certainly didn't receive any complaints about NBC paying Perverted Justice, because no one knew about it when the segments aired.