Nik Wallenda’s live tightrope walk over the Chicago River Sunday night on Discovery was a bravura
performance -- by Wallenda himself certainly, but also by the production team that put this telecast together.
The setting just gleamed -- due in no small measure to the strategic
placement of lights on the various buildings that were most involved in this daredevil stunt, principally the distinctive, ultra-modern Marina City Towers apartment complex (completed in 1964) where a
good deal of the action was centered.
The weather helped too -- a rainless night that made for clear pictures from every angle, of which there were many. Wallenda made it look easy -- despite
the fact that it was not easy. How could it be? Time and time again, a camera shot -- from a camera that was likely mounted on Wallenda himself -- showed you the view directly beneath Wallenda to the
river hundreds of feet below. And you wondered how on earth he could keep his balance.
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He did two walks, the first one longer and at a steep 19-degree angle, and the second one shorter but
accomplished while wearing a blindfold. Watching Wallenda do these walks was a suspenseful experience, despite the fact that there appeared to be no close calls -- no moments when you gasped in alarm
that Wallenda was about to fall. When the walks were over, he didn’t even seem winded.
Some critics are complaining today that this two-hour-plus telecast was too heavily padded, since
Wallenda’s two walks took only a fraction of the show’s airtime to complete. That left the heavy lifting -- where the actual broadcasting was concerned -- to NBC News personalities Willie
Geist, Natalie Morales and Jim Cantore (on loan from the Weather Channel) to fill a ton of airtime. Peacock Productions, a unit of NBC News, produced the show for Discovery under the supervision
of executive producer Howard Swartz, vice president of production and development for Discovery.
The complaints, while valid, are only identifying something everyone expected anyway from a
lifetime of such telecasts -- mainly, that the “main events” would come deep in the “interior” of the show. For those not interested in listening to the NBC newsers discuss the
Chicago weather ad nauseam, it was easy to tune elsewhere during the non-walk portions of the show and still come back in time to catch the walks.
Perhaps a more valid criticism, if one
is looking for something to criticize, was the involvement of NBC News personnel -- both behind and in front of the cameras -- in a telecast that was more of a circus stunt (albeit a very elaborate
one) than a news event.
Once upon a time, critics would have griped about these NBC News personalities filling up airtime breathlessly hyping a daredevil stunt being conducted for no real
reason other than thrills and entertainment. Not that there’s anything wrong with that …
I prefer to let the NBC News talent have their fun. They contributed to a television
event that was probably the most unique telecast we’ll see this year.