Killing the buzz

Courtney Cox doesn't seem to really get the promotional machine. True, she was able to parlay her appearance in a Bruce Springsteen video into a career featuring, amongst other things, the recurring role of Gale Weathers in the Scream movies, and the durability of the Friends sitcom. But she took the goodwill generated by such roles and turned it sour, by marrying costar David Arquette (the least-talented and second-least-manly member of the Arquette clan). Then, while Matthew Perry was proving that he can actually act outside of the Chandler Bing box, admittedly on the worst-for-Sorkin Studio 60, little Monica Gellar has decided to gift us with the show Dirt.

You may not be familiar with Dirt, and not just because it's playing on FX. The show saw a bunch of hype leading up to it, but has failed to find a viewership, seemingly in large part to the notion of celebrities who've made their distaste for the tabloids clear trying to present a show about the tabloid industry. But there could be another reason why Dirt can't seem to gather the viewers that Cox and others hope it will get. It's possible that Courtney is single-handedly driving people away by derailing the potential hype surrounding the show.

The most glaring example of this, of course, comes in the nature of the upcoming guest appearance by former Friend Jennifer Aniston. It was leaked early on that the episode would show a kiss between Aniston and Cox, something that, understandably, more than a few folks who watched Friends hoped for. Seemingly, the hype around the image of the two actresses kissing would do the work to draw the viewers. It would certainly help wash the thought of the Vaughn fling from our thoughts about Aniston.

But Courtney simply couldn't allow the hype to build. She has come out to say that the kiss is really "not a big deal", but that people should still tune in to watch because of the acting. Um, Courtney, if people were going to tune in to see the acting, they'd have done so already. Adding one more person in a guest role to showcase their talent isn't going to help. Adding someone to increase the sex appeal of your program, especially when your lead apparently has found a way to make masturbation look as dull and mechanical on screen as it must be when you're married to David Arquette, could just do the trick and keep the plug from getting itself pulled.

In other words, Courtney, let a kiss be a kiss. And, in the minds of potential viewers, that kiss between you and Aniston could have produced more than sparks. Make amends, and bring Lisa Kudrow on as a nymphomaniac bisexual, and we'll talk again.