Monday, March 4, 2013

20/20 gets crazy


Hey, what’s this . . . Elizabeth Vargas in a Queen video? Not really. The theme of last night’s 20/20 program was mating and dating and the fallout that can happen when the pair-bonds of love are challenged.

The familiar chords of CLTCL begin almost immediately as the opening sequence for the program started. And then, to my surprise, a voiceover says that “the band Queen got it right when they said love can get crazy.”

Then they played a few seconds of the official music video before showing clips from the upcoming segments on love gone wrong . . . or right, depending on how you look at it.

Just as the segment teasers play out and Elizabeth Vargas begins her anchor duties, a stylized title design for the theme of the show appears and becomes the only recurring tie-in to CLTCL throughout the show. No more Queen appearances or song clips, I’m afraid.

I must say, though, that the title design isn’t that stellar. From what I’ve seen of past 20/20 title designs, they’re usually quite sophisticated; put together with a nod towards clever visual symbolism and effective correlation between the words and any connotative meanings associated with the segment itself. This one seems a bit pedestrian, in my opinion, with the heart motif and faux comic book aesthetic. But, hey, at least it was a Queen meme they were modifying and disseminating.

The variety of topics in this episode were nothing too shocking: high-paid mistresses, swingers, cheaters. What was missing on this relationship topic was a feature on porn stars. It would seem to be the obvious example of “co-workers with benefits,” so to speak, but perhaps the subject matter was too explicit for prime time.

Mind you, if they had an adult industry segment, they’d have to change the Queen reference to Body Language.

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