Talk To Me, a made-for-television film that first aired on ABC in 1996, takes viewers behind the scenes of daytime talk show.

The Howard Grant Show has built a strong audience based on airing stories that appeal to the more prurient interests of viewers.  Howard Grant (Peter Scolari) may have started out hosting a show about “issues” but now his show features wives who strip, girlfriends who cheat, and the occasional fist fight.  While Howard presents himself as being a smooth-talking, compassionate advocate for society’s forgotten victims, the truth of the matter is that he’s a puppet who reads from a teleprompter and who wears an earpiece so that he can be told which questions to ask.  Sadie (Veronica Hamel) is the one who is in charge of the show and she’ll exploit anyone and anything to get ratings.

Idealistic Diane Shepherd (Yasmine Bleeth) is hired to work as a segment producer for Howard’s show.  Diane used to work on a talk show called “Margolis.”  Margolis was cancelled because it was too concerned with “issues.”  Still, Diane is hoping that she can bring the same earnest approach that she learned at Margolis to The Howard Grant Show.  Why does Diane believe this?  Why does it not occur to her that an approach that got her previous show canceled might not be appreciated at her new show?

Because Diane is kind of an idiot.

The movie doesn’t want us to think of Diane as being an idiot.  We’re supposed to be on Diane’s side and we’re supposed to be just as shocked as she is when Sadie reveals just how manipulative the talk show game is.  Unfortunately, Diane comes across as being so incredibly naive that it’s hard to really take her or her concerns seriously.  It’s one thing to be upset at the way Sadie manipulates the show’s guests.  It’s another to consistently be surprised by it.  Diane spends so much of the movie being shocked that I eventually lost all respect for her.  Diane cross the line from idealism into stupidity.  Yasmine Bleeth’s wide-eyed performance doesn’t help matters.  I watched this movie and wondered how Diane could even survive living in New York, let alone working there.

Jenny Lewis plays Kelly, a drug-addicted prostitute that Diane recruits to appear on the show.  Talk to Me does a good job of showing how the show manipulates Kelly and then essentially abandons her once her episode has been filmed but, again, there’s nothing particularly surprising about any of it.  I would have to imagine that, even in 1996, most people understood that Jerry Springer wasn’t a paragon of virtue and that his show was more interested in exploiting than helping.  Talk To Me feels like an expose of something that had already been exposed.

The best thing about the film is Peter Scolari’s performance as Howard Grant.  Scolari does such a good job as the unctuous talk show host that it’s actually a shame that the character didn’t get more screentime.  (That said, there is a neat twist involving his character towards the end of the film.)  Scolari perfect captures Howard’s fake but superficially appealing concern for his guests.  He asks the most exploitive of questions but he does so in a gentle voice and his television audience loves him for it.  Howard is remote and quiet off-camera but on-camera, he comes alive.  He was born to talk to people.  It’s just too bad that the conversation often ruins their lives.