"Sex, Love & Secrets"... and health hazardous stupidity

Some series reek of idiocy to the point that the viewer goes limp. When they're that foul, even talking about them can immobilize anyone within earshot.

Yesterday afternoon, for instance, I attempted to power through the session for UPN's "Sex, Lies & Secrets," debuting at 9 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 27. It's a prime-time soap set in Silver Lake, a hip L.A. neighborhood. And it will soon have you pining away for the first season of "Melrose Place." It is that bad.

"Sex, Love & Secrets" cast members Eric Balfour, Denise Richards and Lauren German.

But I soon discovered an evil more sinister than unimaginative primetime programming: Being forced to listen to the babbling dullards responsible for it. Including Denise Richards.

"The show is a study of human nature. It's like a safari in Los Angeles," explained series co-executive producer Michael Gans. "And so we're studying those things that drive humans and make them sort of different than the rest of the animals on the planet. And those things are sex, love and secrets."

I began to feel a slight twitching in my face.

"Although animals have sex, they don't take it to the places we do," Gans continued. "And they fall in love perchance, but we don't know. But humans, we know, do."

Suddenly my head lolled backward and my jaw went slack. My god, this panel was so stupid that my brain was shutting down all unnecessary functions -- muscle control, conscious thought -- as a defensive mechanism.

Then Eric Balfour piped in. "You know, music is such a part of our lives. And you know, there's a soundtrack going on in our heads kind of all the time." I felt a ribbon of drool crawl out of the side of my mouth.

Lord, I was hating it.

Around the time Richards uttered the phrase, "It's really real and fun," a repressed memory from CBS's Wednesday afternoon panel on "Criminal Minds" came flooding back in a blur. My goodness, had Mandy Patinkin brought on a similar fit? I guess so.

Mandy Patinkin plays an FBI profiler in CBS's "Criminal Minds."

I have no idea why "Criminal Minds," a creepy procedural about profilers and exceptionally messed up criminals, took center stage in my thoughts. My mind replayed Patinkin defending the "Criminal Minds" pilot, which featured a woman caged by a serial killer.

Maybe I wished the guy would cage the "Sex, Love & Secrets" cast. That must be it.

Anyway, I recalled that when someone asked what entertainment purpose was served by displaying such gratuitous exploitation at 9 p.m. on Wednesday nights, Patinkin responded cheerily.

"I hope that a show like this heightens your awareness," Patinkin said, "maybe as insignificant as it may seem, because first and foremost, it's entertainment and an escapist element. But I also hope it has an element that the next time you go online to buy something, you might be a little more aware.

"The next time you talk to somebody, the next time you're washing your dishes at a kitchen window, and your 4-year-old is in the yard, before you go to answer the phone, you'll consider who might be able to get into the yard to take your child," Patinkin finished. "Et cetera, et cetera ... that's what I hope."

Fully horrified, I jerked back into a conscious state, returning my attention to "Sex, Love & Secrets" just in time to hear Richards weigh in again.

Richards

"It's never been done before. I'm from the Midwest. I had never even heard of Silver Lake. So I think it's a little, it's different. Everyone has seen shows that take place in Malibu and in Beverly Hills and all that," she offered. "And Silver Lake is different."

I thought I could center myself and finish the panel, but soon after that, her co-star Omar Benson Miller said, "I just prepared a rap for everyone today." Although he was joking, it was enough to make me dash from the room.

Sanity first, friends, sanity first.