INVASION IOWA
Tonight at 9, Spike TV.
When the makers of "The Joe Schmo Show" mounted their fake reality series, everyone was in on the practical joke but one guy, whose unexpectedly sweet reactions made the show more playful than mean.
For their new effort, the same producers have targeted an entire town, mounted a faux film - and enlisted as their chief co-conspirator William Shatner.
The result is "Invasion Iowa," a four-night, five-hour reality TV series (premiering tonight at 9) that has little to do with reality. It does, however, have something to do with oddly endearing and entertaining television.
William Shatner's delicious role as Denny Crane won him an Emmy as a guest star on "The Practice" last year, and he's doing even better work continuing the part this season on "Boston Legal."
Yet in "Invasion Iowa," he risks all that accrued goodwill by punking the folks of Riverside, Iowa, pretending to be an eccentric exaggeration of himself while filming a low-budget sci-fi movie - and casting many of the townspeople as co-stars and crew members.
To be fair, the residents of Riverside - population 928 - sort of asked for it. Years ago, a "Star Trek" fan and enterprising city council member (and in this context, "enterprising" may be one of my all-time worst puns) picked up on a piece of "Trek" trivia identifying Iowa as Capt. James T. Kirk's home state.
He got the town to pass a resolution proclaiming itself as the fictional character's "future birthplace."
"I don't think anybody who's interested in 'Star Trek' is nuts," Shatner says during his introductory remarks to the Riverside citizenry. "I just think they should get a life."
Shatner launches into his role, the role of being an over-the-top Shatner, with obvious zeal. Seated at a lunch counter, he starts poaching the French fries of the guy next to him - then bites his burger. He hands out color-coded berets called "Shats" (basically, mood rings for your head). He carries his Emmy around and displays it prominently. And when he runs auditions for supporting roles, his remarks and requests are more capricious than anything Simon Cowell pulls on "American Idol."
"Do it again, and do it with a Cajun accent," he tells one wanna-be actor.
"Sing 'Pinball Wizard,'" he tells another.
Some Riverside townspeople, like blond Brooke Lemke, get fat speaking roles and get to interact with the Hollywood "stars" of the fake "Invasion Iowa" film. Desi Lydic plays an actress named Gryffyn, who has a shoplifting problem, as well as a problem pronouncing the name of her character, a futuristic assassin called "the disintegratrix."
Shatner, in character as himself, can't say it either. He also rails against cell phones, enjoys homemade pie with Dale Cooper-ish enthusiasm, and counts on his own charm to take the sting out of this sting, when it's revealed.
"Invasion Iowa" runs nightly through Friday, when its two-hour conclusion reveals the joke, and the reaction. I'm surprised, but I'll be there. I may even be displaying the ultimate sign of approval: a green Shat.
