On July 7, 2005, only a day after it was officially announced that the Olympics would be held in London, a team of four terrorists detonated four bombs around the city, killing 52 and injuring over 500. Seven years and 20 days later, a.k.a. last night, Danny Boyle and the rest of his Olympics’ Opening Ceremony crew staged a tribute to those who passed away in the terrorist attack — except that NBC didn’t show it here in America.
Instead, we got a pre-taped Ryan Seacrest interview with Michael Phelps.
Like everything having to do with the Olympics, the tribute, which you can view over at Deadspin, was hilariously over-the-top, unsubtle, and preposterous, and the song that was sung, “Abide With Me” by Emeli Sandé, was overwrought to the point of self-parody. But it was still better than that boring Seacrest interview; at least it tried to mean something, other than giving that much more screen time to someone, Phelps, who spends half his time hawking for Subway with his mom (and who clearly didn’t want to be interviewed for the 8,947th time this week.)
Some are claiming that it wasn’t a direct tribute to what happened on 7/7 (the Olympics’ media guide doesn’t make direct reference to the attacks), but considering its BBC introduction:
Ladies and gentlemen, please pause silent for our memorial wall for friends and family who can’t be here tonight. The excitement of that moment in Singapore seven years ago when England won the games was tempered the next day with sorrow from the events of July 7th that year. A wall of remembrance for those no longer here to share in this event. (Via)
Um, yeah.
Between this, their decision to use a tape-delay throughout the Olympics, Dan Harmon getting a development deal from Fox, ordering a Dracula series, and the announcement that they’re done with good comedies, and instead want CBS-style broad sitcoms, NBC is having a very dumb week.
