Pam Anderson shows up tonight at 10 on E!, launching her first official foray into reality TV. Her unofficial foray, arguably, was her home-video sex tape with Tommy Lee. He’s in this new series, too, but with more clothes on.
The titular star of Pam: Girl on the Loose, on the other hand, wastes no time getting buck naked in her new reality series. Other shows may have confessional rooms where its subjects sit in plush chairs and talk directly to the camera. Pam Anderson has the bathtub equivalent.
As an executive producer of her new E! series, Anderson is anything but victimized by the camera crews following her around. She’s no Anna Nicole Smith, and not even a Denise Richards. Her standards and restrictions are her own, but they’re firm, and they’re obvious.
Nudity? No problem. In fact, it’s more of a problem for E! to fog the nudity than for the former Baywatch and Home Improvement star to flaunt it.
Poking fun at herself? That comes naturally to Anderson, too, and always has, which is why she comes off so much better than most reality-TV vanity cases.
Showing her kids? That turns out to be her line in the sand. As she explains in the premiere, you may see a hand or a foot or a back from time to time, because her kids usually are around – but she won’t show their faces, or enlist them as co-stars in her own televised reality. You’ll see their lemonade stand, but not what they look like.
And you know what? Good for them, and good for her. Anderson also injects her own perspective into the series by writing and drawing on the screen from time to time – scribbling messages, circling messages, just playing around. It’s a loose approach, as befits the show’s title.
It’s not a good TV show, but Pam: Girl on the Loose does capture and reflect the woman’s charms – and not just the ones evident in those bathtub confessions.
