Hot-wired into the tabloid zeitgeist, Dirt is good, lurid fun. Courteney Cox, in a bold departure from Monica on Friends, stars as Lucy Spiller, editor of Dirt magazine. Relentless, high-strung Lucy is part Ben Bradlee and part Bonnie Fuller. She's a stickler for journalistic integrity with a basic instinct for the scandalous "get." "There's actual reporting in what we do," she rallies her reporters. "The only defense we have is the truth." Lucy is saddled with a clichéd personal life (abandonment issues, intimacy issues, blah, blah, blah). She is way more fun to watch at work when she's blackmailing celebs to deliver scoops by threatening to reveal their sexual peccadilloes, stun-gunning one-night-stands, or betraying a loved one to score an exclusive, career-wrecking cover story. Her go-to photographer and best friend is Don Konkey (Ian Hart, an uncanny John Lennon in Backbeat and The Hours and Times) a functioning schizophrenic prone to hallucinations, but who will do anything for Lucy, even sever his own finger to gain admittance to a hospital where an unblemished Christian pop star is being mysteriously kept under wraps. Konkey is the voice and heart of Dirt. His introductory episode recaps are a highlight ("No offense, but you should be up on this by now," he states in episode 7). Waiting in the wings on Lucy's staff is Willa (Alex Breckenridge), young, green, and hungry. She becomes a much more provocative presence as she joins the dark side as the season progresses.

Dirt could use sharper writing, but it's savvy enough when it comes to parsing Hollywood-speak. A celebrity's so-called "exhaustion" is translated by Lucy to mean "rehab or a psychotic break." Dirt drops A-list names (Clooney, Britney), but for a series set in Hollywood, it's light on actual celebrities (director David Fincher and a self-deprecating Christopher Knight and Adrienne Curry appear as themselves). Instead, we get unconvincing fictional celebrities such as wash-out actor Holt McLaren (Josh Stewart), who gets his shot at superstardom by making the same kind of pact with Lucy that John Cassavetes made with the coven in Rosemary's Baby. Just one scoop begins a downward spiral for his sitcom-actress girlfriend (Laura Allen) and her best friend, an actress with an ill-timed pregnancy (Shannyn Sossamon). Also getting down and dirty are Rick Fox as a compromised basketball superstar, Wayne Brady as a cultured thug, and, in the season finale, Jennifer Aniston as Lucy's rival (and then some, although their much-hyped onscreen kiss is really much ado about nothing). An FX series, Dirt shovels on the network's envelope-pushing profane language and graphic sex scenes. It should clean up on DVD. --Donald Liebenson

Enter the secret and salacious world of show business through the back door. Lucy Spiller (Courteney Cox) makes the headlines as the woman Hollywood loves to hate in the darkly comedic drama Dirt. As editor-in-chief of Tinseltown's most influential magazines, Spiller can make or break the stars. Her obsession with the seamy side of the entertainment industry gives her power over every celebrity in the biz, but leaves her helpless against her own demons. It's "delirious, dizzy, decadent and altogether delicious," raves The Miami Herald. Dig deep with Dirt: The Complete First Season. Experience every sumptuous episode, plus exciting bonus features you can't see anywhere else, in this 4-disc box set. It's tempting television at its best.

Do people realize how bitingly smart this show is? I don't think they do, judging by the disparaging comments on how gratuitous, lurid, tasteless, and unfunny the show is. Guess what? It's a show about sensationalist TABLOIDISM. ...I hope that's all that's needed to be said on that front.

And the show IS funny: all sharp, bleeding wit--and it's a good thing Lucy Spiller's first instinct is to tear into the first hint of blood in the water. It's amazing to watch the Devil work the room, spinning her wheels and making deals.

But more than that, the show is about showing what's human behind the celeb, the humanity behind the monstrous tabloids, like Lucy and Don's genuine friendship. Don truly is the "heart and voice" of the show, because it's through him that the show questions its actions: Why the hell is everyone acting so horribly to each other?

The answer: Because you want them to.

Dirt makes a statement and makes it profoundly--and not by beating you in the head with a soapbox. The show opens up into the hyper-real world that exemplifies the consumers' crushing need for the kind of entertainment that deals exclusively in sex, shame, blood, violence, and betrayal: the weekly tabloids. Do you hate what you see on-screen? Look around. If there's a magazine featuring TomKat's tortured wedded life on your desk, in your hands, hell--if you even know what I'm talking about--you're a part of it.

You can't watch Dirt thinking it's just "trashy fun." You won't get it. You won't get nearly what it's worth out of it.

But if you THINK while watching the beautiful art direction, acting, music, setting, plot, character development--it's definitely worth it.

As for the content, this show deals with the tawdry side of life, particularly Hollywood; so we should expect an expose of the immorality that may come from a life in pursuit of hedonism. But artistically, the acting and film-making is great.

I stayed away from this show for far too long because it got slammed by so many critics but when Hulu launched I figured what the heck, it's free so I'll give it a shot and I'm SO GLAD I did.

For all of those who slam it I say: this isn't Masterpiece Theatre kids and it isn't supposed to be.

What it is is a highly enjoyable guilty pleasure and it's fantastic to see Courtney Cox in this as it is clear she is having a blast playing the over the top Lucy Spiller.

This was quite a disappointment. The idea of a series about a thrashy Hollywood celebrity magazine was good but it does not succeed. On the one hand it has a way too hard edge without being really realistic. It dwells on the lives of not that interesting and unsympathetic actors thourgh the eyes of an extremely hardened editor played by Courteney Cox. The role of this aggressive, foul-mouthes and ambitious editor does not suit her. The problem is that after a pilot episode that was dreadful it does get somewhat better with the exception of her schizophrenic photographer friend. This could and should have been thrasy fun instead.

okay, so it's trashy, and it lays bare all the tabloid nonsense we like to pretend we despise. but hey, isn't that the point of TV? personally, i find the show completely addictive. this show entertains in rich color and witty dialog. i think the cast is amazing- courtney cox is a cold and compelling star, and don is totally endearing as a co. willa is wonderfully wicked, holt gorgeously indecisive, julia, ah how you'll love to hate her. and hey, if you don't want to watch a show about a tabloid, don't watch it! but if you do, i think you'll agree you're hooked after one episode. it's just good entertainment!