By: Amrie Cunningham [My Take on TV]
Since FX was kind enough to send me the first two episodes of the second season of DIRT, I have to say that I’m pretty excited / interested in what they’re doing this year. Here are four reasons to check out Season 2 of DIRT, premiering tonight at 10PM on FX.
1. Courteney Cox is really great as magazine editor Lucy Spiller. We’re used to seeing her as a loveable “Friend” or as a cutthroat news reporter in the Scream movies. She is something else in the role of the editor who was stabbed at the end of season 1. She’s back with a bit of a vengeance, trying to make her magazine succeed. I’d be afraid to work with her character, for sure.
2. I feel more invested in the relationships this season. The friendship of Lucy and Don Konky (Ian Hart) is really celebrated. He’s on his meds to treat schizophrenia, and she’s really there to help take care of him. Holt McLaren (Josh Stewart) still loves Lucy and you get the feeling in the first two episodes that there might be hope for them. And Lucy and Willa (Alexandra Breckenridge) have reached a détente, and they seem to work better this year.
3. Guest stars are pulled right from the pages of our favorite tabloid magazines. Tom Arnold is really great as a David Hasselhoff / Alec Baldwin clone. Elizabeth Harnois plays a socialite modeled after Paris Hilton. Kiersten Warren (Slater’s girlfriend from Saved by the Bell: The College Years) is featured as an Anna Nicole Smith type. I like her better as a super-beyotch, and not as the whiny girl we knew back in the College Years. Ashley Johnson (Growing Pains) is fabulous as a popstar who has a run in with Lucy. It’s very Britney Spears.
4. The storylines are self contained, so you don’t need to watch every episode if you don’t have the time. The stories are a bit lighter, and they are set more in the Dirt Now offices. We see more of the day to day magazine making business. The writers (and the cast, even) seem aware of what was wrong last season, and they have made a notable decision to change it up, and fix the problems.
Check it out on FX tonight, let us know what you think. 
