Last time I was down in Texas, I couldn’t sleep, so I was channel surfing and stumbled across an episode of “To catch a predator”

Wow. Good premise, but the execution was… Wow. One of worst shows I’ve ever seen. I’d rather watch Reality TV. Talk about repetitive. Even if it was entirely scripted and used actions instead of quasi-reality morons, I doubt they’d have been effected by the writer’s strike.

Hansen, the host, attempts to interview each one at length about their intentions. Without initially identifying himself the host interviews the predators about their intentions, and also reads some of the marginally graphic portions of the chat.

After a few minutes of nearly identical questioning, Hansen identifies himself as a Dateline NBC correspondent and informs the visitor that the entire interview has been recorded on hidden camera as part of the Dateline NBC story. Then, Dateline crew members with large cameras and microphones that don’t actually do anything jump in to frame, and the predator is offered a chance to make a final statement before being asked to leave. Then the cops grab him and the whole thing starts over with a new predator.

And this has been on the air since 2004?