PHOTO! Here is a picture of Mullah Krekar, the focus of NBC The Wanted tonight. NBC’s The Wanted on Mullah Krekar is getting average reviews.
The concern critics have with the show is that it’s dressed in a Dateline-style news program but presented as a reality tv program lacking of real reporting.
The LA Times says tonight’s show as follows:
The Wanted: Counterterrorism experts hunt for Mullah Krekar, founder of an international terrorist organization said to be responsible for killing hundreds of Westerners in this new series.
But the New York Times says The Wanted has a good story presented in a gimmick fashion.
“Beneath many scrims of reality-show gimmickry and stagy “Dateline”-style melodrama, the episode raises a perfectly legitimate “60 Minutes” kind of question: Why is it that Mullah Krekar, who is a wanted man in Iraq and was deemed a threat to national security by the Supreme Court of Norway, is still at liberty in Oslo, even though his refugee status was revoked and the Norwegian government says it wants him gone? “ “
The Times says the show is short on journalism and strong on show business, theatrical appeal:
“Reporting on “The Wanted” keeps being pushed aside by the demands of show business….In the premiere episode there is no collusion with any government entity, just a few theatrical but uninformative interviews with Iraqi officials and Norwegian politicians.”
Bottom lines, says the New York Times, is the show lacks journalism:
“There is a good story buried somewhere in the Scandinavian gloom, but “The Wanted” leaves it almost untouched. Mr. Ciralsky complains that “Norway is letting justice get in the way of justice.” NBC News is letting reality-show aesthetics get in the way of journalism.”
