Dirt (TV series)

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Dirt (TV series)

Dirt (styled d!rt for logos) is an American

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
television serial

Serial (radio and television)

Serials in television and radio are series that rely on a continuing Plot that unfolds in a serial fashion, episode by episode. Serials typically follow main story arcs that span entire seasons or even the full run of the series, which distinguishes them from traditional episodic television that relies on more stand-alone episodes....
that was broadcast on the FX network. It premiered on January 2, 2007 and starred Courteney Cox

Courteney Cox

Courteney Bass Cox , also known as Courteney Cox Arquette, is an American actor, film producer and former model, best known for her role as Monica Geller on the Situation comedy Friends....
as Lucy Spiller, the editor-in-chief of the first-of-its-kind "glossy tabloid

Supermarket tabloid

Supermarket tabloids are national weekly magazines printed on newsprint in tabloid format, specializing in celebrity news, gossip, astrology, and bizarre stories about ordinary people....
" magazine DirtNow, which was previously two separate publications: D!rt! (a tabloid) and Now (a glossy magazine with a more respectable reputation.).

The show centers around the publication of the DirtNow magazine and the lives of Spiller and her long time friend Don Konkey, a paparazzo

Paparazzi

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Encyclopedia

Dirt (styled d!rt for logos) is an American

United States

Serial (radio and television)

Courteney Cox

Supermarket tabloid

Paparazzi

File:Paparazzi by David Shankbone.jpgPaparazzi is a plural term for photographers who take unstaged and/or candid photographys of celebrities caught unaware....
and functioning schizophrenic who is deeply loyal to her. Also included are the lives of some of the celebrities covered by the magazine, including Holt McLaren and Julia Mallory, a celebrity couple.

A 13 episode second season was announced on May 8, 2007. Only seven episodes were produced prior to the 2007 WGA strike shut down production. The shortened second season began airing on March 2, 2008.

The show was produced by Coquette Productions

Coquette Productions

Coquette Productions is a motion picture production company created by the Arquettes. Their productions include:2009:The Big Change 2007:Dirt ...
and ABC Studios (Disney). It is distributed outside the US by Disney.

On June 8, 2008, Cox revealed that the series had been canceled after two seasons.

Plot

Season One

The series revolves around Lucy Spiller

Lucy Spiller

Lucinda Jane Spiller is a fictional character on the FX television series Dirt , played by Courteney Cox....
and her best friend, the schizophrenic freelance photographer Don Konkey, who aids Lucy in her career as editor-in-chief of Dirt and Now Magazine, which Lucy merges into a single magazine at the end of the second episode due to budget issues. Most episodes focus upon Lucy's never-ending quest to find new news stories regarding celebrities, with help of her staff of reporters and photographers, most notably Don and the young upstart writer Willa McPherson.

As the series progresses, we learn more about Lucy and Don's personal lives. Don is a functional schizophrenic, who regularly hallucinates and hears voices, which is often filtered through his sense of guilt over the questionable actions he takes in order to help Lucy land her stories and the fall-out that comes from exposing people's dark secrets. Lucy meanwhile is a secretly depressed person whose life is totally devoted towards the magazine, to the extent of forgoing any sort of social life whatsoever. Her relationship with her family is strained, in part due to the mysterious suicide of her father, which haunts Lucy due to the cryptic suicide note that he left her, which she kept from the rest of her family.

One of the main subplots of season one is Lucy and Don's relationship with Holt McLaren and the love triangle that erupts between Lucy, Holt, and Holt's current girlfriend Julia Mallory, a popular sitcom star who's begun breaking out into horrible movies while Holt's career has tanked after a series of movies he has done, flopped. In an attempt to convert Holt into a secret source for potential stories, Lucy offers to use the full resources of her magazine to revive Holt's career. In exchange, Holt reveals that Julia's best friend is pregnant after a one-night stand with a fellow actor and the actress (who thinks Julia leaked the story) kills herself via a drug overdose as a result of the public humiliation. Furthermore, Lucy reveals that Julia has cheated on Holt with the co-star of her recently released film, causing Holt to have a mini-breakdown while driving and purposely crashing his car while driving along with Julia. This causes Julia to suffer severe injuries, which leads to an addiction to painkillers and ultimately full-blown drug addiction. To revive her career and gain public sympathy, Julia secretly obtains and leaks a copy of her having sex with her co-star and falsely accuses her co-star of rape, though Lucy ultimately exposes her lies in the basement.

As Holt's star rises and his girlfriend's plummets, Holt and Lucy begin a relationship which ultimately is exposed to Julia by a rival magazine editor/friend of Lucy's. Julia ultimately realizes that Lucy has helped ruined her life and attacks her with a knife, leaving Lucy bleeding to death. Contacting Don, season one ends with Lucy ordering Don to take photos of her laying on the ground horribly embarassed, in order to ensure that her magazine will be able to have the ugly photos for the story on the attempt on her life.

Season Two

Season two opens with Lucy surviving the attempt on her life and Julia dying. Returning to work with a young idealistic male writer she met and ultimately hires during her stay at the hospital, Lucy finds the magazine floundering without her hard driving leadership. While Lucy's boss Brent arranges for the sale of the magazine to a womanizing, pill-popping foreign investor, Lucy blackmails a down on her luck pop star, Sharlee Cates, to hire Don (now back on his medication) as her personal photographer in order to keep tabs on her. This causes problems between Don and Lucy, as Don becomes friends with the singer, whose marriage collapses upon the revelation that her ex-husband is sleeping with his first wife and only married the singer in order to divorce her and take half her fortune. Lucy, on the other hand, wants to use his friendship with Sharlee to exploit her problems, including the cutting off of her hair, divorce, and her confrontation with a pop legend, Mia, at an awards show. Meanwhile Lucy's new hire, Farber, begins a relationship with Willa, who ultimately betrays him in order to break the story involving a former child-star friend of her new boyfriend, who was caught soliciting sex from an undercover officer. After an awards show, Brent dies from carbon monoxide poisoning, caused by passing out in his still-running car.

Holt begins work on a new film project and struggles to deal with pretending to be in mourning over his deceased girlfriend while lusting after Lucy. Lucy begins to date a powerful studio executive, but it ends after he suspects Lucy would rather be involved with Holt. Ultimately, after Lucy's mother dies during a botched plastic surgery procedure, Lucy agrees to Holt's ultimatum that they go public with their relationship after he completes work on his new movie.

Characters

Main characters

Former cast/recurring members

Production

The first season consisted of 13 one-hour-long episodes. Production began in September 2006, but the pilot was reshot to include a cameo by David Fincher

David Fincher

David Leo Fincher is an American, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker and music video director known for his dark and stylish movies such as Seven , Fight Club , Zodiac and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button....
and to add more of Courteney Cox's character. Production on the original pilot began in Los Angeles in March 2006,

Dirt was the ninth drama series pilot shot for FX. Matthew Carnahan

Matthew Carnahan

Matthew McNair Carnahan is an United States producer, writer and director.Carnahan studied at New York University as well as the Neighborhood Playhouse....
, Courteney Cox

Courteney Cox

David Arquette

David James Arquette is an United States actor, film director, film producer, screenwriter and former professional wrestler. He became known during the late 1990s, after having starred in several Hollywood films, including the films of the Scream trilogy....
served as the show's executive producers, with Thea Mann producing for Cox and Arquette's Coquette Productions

Coquette Productions

Coquette Productions is a motion picture production company created by the Arquettes. Their productions include:2009:The Big Change 2007:Dirt ...
, and Touchstone Television

Touchstone Television

ABC Studios is the television Filmmaking#Production division of Disney-ABC Television Group. ABC Studios was established as Touchstone Television in 1985 and given its current name in May 2007....
and FX co-producing the series.

Season Two premiere and ratings

Dirt was originally picked up for an additional 13 episodes. However, prior to the writers' strike, only 7 episodes had been written. Shooting wrapped on these episodes in December 2007. After the strike was resolved, FX opted not to produce the remaining 6 episodes for "economic reasons" that did not affect the show's chances at renewal.

Not only was the season shortened from 13 to 7 episodes, but it was also moved to a competitive timeslot, Sundays at 10 P.M. FX began heavy promotion for the show in December 2007, but only about 1.7 million people tuned into the premiere on March 2, 2008.

The season started off with consistent ratings in the first few weeks. But after reaching its peak at 1.6 million in the middle of the season, the ratings began to slip, ending with 1.06 million in the finale.

While the first season did not receive much positive critical praise, the second season was slightly more well-received, TV Guide said "it's trashy, flashy, and ridiculously addictive", the Associated Press declared "it's dog-eat-dog fun", and Entertainment Weekly described Cox's performance as "deliciously deviant" and gave the show a B-, as opposed to season 1 which got a C-.

According to Courteney Cox in a TV Guide interview, Dirt has not been renewed for a third season. She and husband David Arquette are working on new projects.

Screening countries

Region	Aired on	Comments
United Kingdom United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....	Five US Five US Five USA is a free-to-air entertainment television channel in the United Kingdom owned by Five , launched on 16 October 2006 as Five US. It was the second digital channel to be launched by Five as part of their multi-channel strategy, the first being Fiver ....	Began airing July 9, 2007. The show brought the channel its highest ever ratings of 629,000 viewers. Every two or three weeks the network has a "Dirty Night In" on Saturdays, repeating the last few episodes. Dirt moved from Five US Five US Five USA is a free-to-air entertainment television channel in the United Kingdom owned by Five , launched on 16 October 2006 as Five US. It was the second digital channel to be launched by Five as part of their multi-channel strategy, the first being Fiver .... to its sister channel Fiver Five Life Fiver is a free-to-view television channel in the United Kingdom owned by Five . The channel launched as "Five Life" on 15 October 2006, and was rebranded as "Fiver" on 28 April 2008.... for the screening of its second season, which started on Monday, April 28, 2008 at 9:00pm and only drew in 89,000 for the opening episode of season 2. The series concluded on Monday June 9, 2008.
South Africa South Africa The Republic of South Africa, also known by Official names of South Africa, is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa....	M-Net Series	The show was so successful and popular, it went into a rebroadcast on Tuesday Nights at 21:30 on Go Go (TV channel) go is a TV channel on the DStv satellite network. The channel was broadcast on DStv channel 84. After a channel shuffle by DStv in October 2007, go was moved to channel 123.... with its encore on Saturday Night at 21:30. Go Go (TV channel) go is a TV channel on the DStv satellite network. The channel was broadcast on DStv channel 84. After a channel shuffle by DStv in October 2007, go was moved to channel 123.... recently aired the Season 1 Cliffhanger on Tuesday February 26, 2008.
Serbia Serbia Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a country in Central Europe and Balkans Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central part of the Balkans....	FOX life cable TV	Title translated as "Shame".
France France France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....	France 4
Latin America Latin America Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages ? particularly Spanish language and Portuguese language, and variably French language ? are primarily spoken....	People+Arts People+Arts *People+Arts* is an entertainment television channel broadcasting to Brazil, Spain, Portugal and Latin America. It is jointly owned by Discovery Channel and BBC Worldwide....	Screened Sundays at 9:00pm.
The Netherlands	NET 5 NET 5 NET 5 is a commercial Netherlands television channel owned by ProSiebenSat.1 Media. Other channels of the group in the Netherlands are SBS6 and Veronica ....	Season 1 commenced on January 1, 2008 with a double episode. Both episodes rated well for a non-Dutch program with episode 1 attracting 756,000 viewers (9.5%, 19th place) and episode 2 attracting 713,000 (9.0%, 21st place). The regular time slot is Tuesdays at 9:30pm.
Belgium Belgium * A small German-speaking Community of Belgium exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political and cultural conflicts are reflected in the history of Belgium and a complex Communities and regions of Belgium....	2BE	Every Thursday at 8:30pm
Australia Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....	Movie Extra subscription channel	Premiered December 15, 2007. It currently screens Saturdays at 8:30pm AEST, with encores throughout the week. Season 2 premiered on October 5, 2008
Bulgaria Bulgaria The state of Bulgaria , Scientific transliteration Balgarija, officially the Republic of Bulgaria has played a significant role in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe for over fourteen centuries....	Nova Television Nova Television Nova Television is the first Bulgarian commercial television network launched on July 22, 1994. Since 2000, it was entirely owned by the Greece company ANT1 Group....	Began airing on December 5, 2007, Monday to Friday at 22:30.
Turkey Turkey Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and Thrace in the Balkans region of Southern Europe....	e2 E2 (TV channel) e2 is a Turkish television channel that often broadcasts American series. It is owned by the Dogus Group....	The show's regular screening time was Thursdays at 10:00pm.
Latvia Latvia Latvia The Latvians are a Baltic peoples culturally related to the Estonians and Lithuanians, with the Latvian language having many similarities with Lithuanian language, but not with the Estonian language....	LTV1	Screens Fridays at 9:10pm.
Lithuania Lithuania Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest....	LNK LNK (television station) LNK TV, also known as Laisvas ir Nepriklausomas Kanalas , is one of the major commercial TV channels in Lithuania. It was founded in 1995. Before the name LNK it was called Litpolinter TV....	Airs Tuesdays 10:30pm
Ireland Ireland Ireland is the List of islands by area in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islet....	Channel 6 Channel 6 (Ireland) 3e is a Television in Ireland operated in the Republic of Ireland by the TV3 Group. The channel operates daily between 10:00 and 01:00.Originally known as Channel 6 when it launched on 30 March 2006, it was rebranded as 3e on January 5, 2009....	Screens Wednesdays at 9:25pm.
Slovenia Slovenia Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in southern Central Europe bordering Italy to the west, the Adriatic Sea to the southwest, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north....	POP TV POP TV POP TV is a private television network in Slovenia that began broadcasting on December 15, 1995. The station is known for broadcasting United States TV series, such as Lost , Desperate Housewives, Prison Break, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, Monk , Without a Trace, Ugly Betty, Dexter , Brothers & Sisters , House , Califo...	Premiered on December 17, 2007 and is scheduled to be shown every Monday at 09:50pm GMT+1. The show's title is translated into "Tabloid".
Croatia Croatia Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a Central European country at the crossroads of Pannonian Plain, Balkans, and the Mediterranean Sea....	HRT Croatian Radiotelevision Croatian Radiotelevision is a Croatian public broadcasting company. It operates several radio and television channels, over a domestic transmitter network as well as satellite....	Premiered near the end of 2007 and was shown every Friday at 09:50pm GMT+1. The show's title is translated into "Tabloid Editor".
New Zealand New Zealand New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous Islands of New Zealand, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands....	TV2	Currently off air
The Philippines	VELVET Velvet File:Ottoman cover.jpgVelvet is a type of tufted textile in which the cut yarns are very evenly distributed, with a short dense pile, giving it a distinct feel....
Singapore Singapore Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country microstate located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. It lies 137 kilometres north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands....	MediaCorp TV Channel 5 MediaCorp TV Channel 5 File:SBC5_logo.gifMediaCorp Channel 5 is a 24-hour, English language television channel based in Singapore. Programmes on Channel 5 normally include English dramas, variety shows, news, current affairs, game programmes, and general adaption of overseas productions, such as Singapore Idol and Who Wants to be a Millionaire?....	Premiered on Monday, January 28, 2008 and is screened weekly at 11pm (GMT+0800).
Sweden Sweden Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....	TV6	Season one was shown on Thursdays at about 10pm.
Hungary Hungary Hungary , officially in English the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia....	Viasat3	Season one was shown on Fridays at about 10pm as DIRT: A hetilap (DIRT: The Weekly).
Italy Italy Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....	La7 La7 La7 is an Italy private television channel and considered as the third major television network in Italy. It is currently owned by Telecom Italia Media, the media branch of the telephone company Telecom Italia, which also owns 51% of MTV Italy....
Israel Israel Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....	Yes Satellite TV channel 12 ("Yes Stars 1")	Airs Sundays 10:00pm.
Norway Norway Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula....		Airs Sundays 10:00pm.
Greece Greece Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkans. It has borders with Albania, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to the north, and Turkey to the east....	ANT1 ANT1 Antenna, better known as ANT1, is a popular television station in Greece. It is pronounced "Ant-?nna" because of the Greek word for "Antenna" meaning aerial and "ena" for the number 1....	The first season was shown every day at 00:00. The second season was shown every Monday, Thursday and Friday at 00:00.Reruns of the show airs every Monday AT 22:00 on Fox life Fox Life Fox Life is a television network, launched by the Fox Broadcasting Company, which airs across Latin America, Europe and Japan . Its basic programming include numerous television series, sitcoms and movies, among others, which includes some original programming in certain regions....
Estonia Estonia Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Finland across the Gulf of Finland, to the west by Sweden across the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by the Russia ....		Premieres December 8, 2008.
Finland Finland Finland , officially the Republic of Finland , is a Nordic countries situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. It borders Sweden on the west, Russia on the east, and Norway on the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland....	Nelonen Nelonen Nelonen is a Finland commercial TV channel. It started out as Helsinki's local television channel Paikallistelevisio in 1989 on the HTV cable network, which name was changed first to PTV4 and then to Nelonen....
Hong Kong Hong Kong Hong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a territory located in Southern China in East Asia, bordering the province of Guangdong to the north and facing the South China Sea to the east, west and south....	TVB Pearl TVB Pearl TVB Pearl is one of the two Free television services in Hong Kong that mainly broadcast in the English language, the other being Asia Television Ltd....	Premiered on Tuesday, December 16, 2008 and is screened weekly at 12am (GMT+0800).
Spain Spain Spain or the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in Southern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though Espa?a , Estado espa?ol and Naci?n espa?ola are used interchangeably....	FOX Fox A fox is an animal belonging to any one of about 27 species of small to medium-sized Canidae, characterized by possessing a long, narrow snout, and a bushy tail, or brush....
Romania Romania Romania is a country located in Southeastern Europe Central Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian Mountains, bordering on the Black Sea....	AXN AXN AXN is a pay-TV, cable and satellite TV channel owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, which was first launched on May 22, 1997. The network is now spread across several regions in the world, including Japan, Europe, other parts of Asia and Latin America....	The first season was shown every Sunday at 10 PM.

DVD release

Title	Release date	Ep #	Additional information
The Complete First Season	December 11, 2007	13	Featurettes: Celebrity Couple Gets Dirty; Through A Lens, Darkly; Tabloid Wars. Deleted Scenes, Gag Reel, Season 2 Preview

The series is licensed for DVD release to Buena Vista Home Video.

Season 2 has not yet been released on DVD although several sites list it as an upcoming title. No release date has been announced.

External links

Dirt makes muted return for fiver
Official website at FXNetworks.com
at TV-Dirt.com
at The Futon Critic
at five.tv
at POP TV
POP TV

POP TV is a private television network in Slovenia that began broadcasting on December 15, 1995. The station is known for broadcasting United States TV series, such as Lost , Desperate Housewives, Prison Break, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, Monk , Without a Trace, Ugly Betty, Dexter , Brothers & Sisters , House , Califo...