• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, May 6, 2015

The savvy Kardashian clan has finally figured out a way to capitalize on dad Bruce Jenner’s transgender story -- by producing their own two-part special.

Jenner’s interview with Diane Sawyer April 24 drew an audience of about 17 million people on a Friday night to become one of the highest-rated TV shows of the year -- an audience so big that even the Kardashians were impressed, if not surprised.

However, for the Kardashians, there was one problem: That show was on ABC, and not on E!, where the Kardashians could have benefited from it.

So now, they’ve come up with two hours about Bruce that they can call their own. It’s a two-hour special that will air in two, one-hour parts, according to an announcement from E! 

Titled “Keeping Up With the Kardashians: About Bruce,” the first hour will air on Sunday, May 17, at 9 Eastern. The second hour will air the very next night -- Monday, May 18, also at 9.

In its press release, E! promised that every Kardashian -- and then some -- will appear on these specials to talk about Bruce and his planned transformation to female. These participants include his now ex-wife Kris Jenner; stepdaughters Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian; daughters Kylie and Kendall Jenner; and Scott Disick, Kourtney’s husband, who seems to be drunk every time I accidentally come across “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” this season 

Bruce himself will also appear, in scenes where he and various family members will be seen discussing his transition.

Two family members stand out as being of special interest: Ex-wife Kris, who had no comment on the Jenner-Sawyer interview in the days after it aired, and Khloe Kardashian, who Bruce indicated in the Sawyer interview was the least accepting of his decision to live the rest of his life as a woman.

Bruce didn’t elaborate on Khloe’s reaction, which left a viewer wanting more. And now that viewer is going to get it, thanks to these two E! specials -- or so it would seem.

Perhaps Bruce was aware way back in February that “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” would eventually deal with the topic of his new lifestyle some months later, so he held back a little bit of this and a little bit of that so that the E! show could spring some surprises of its own.

It’s also possible that shrewd Kris maintained her “no comment” stance in the wake of the Sawyer interview because she was already in the midst of producing her own two-part special on Bruce’s “journey” and was well aware that the success of this pair of E! specials would depend on material not already revealed on the ABC show.

That’s probably why none of the family members associated with the E! series appeared on the Sawyer special. They were conspicuously absent as Jenner’s four grown children from his two previous marriages turned up on the Sawyer show to play the "family member" roles.

The announcement from E! about this pair of Jenner-Kardashian specials indicates that the Kardashians are now ready to talk about Bruce in their own terms and in their own time frame and, as it happens, on their own TV show and no one else’s.

Speaking of time frames, if you’re curious to learn when Bruce will officially transform from a he to a she, it seems likely that that information will come out gradually in the eight-part series E! is producing about his transformation. Tucked into E!’s press release about this two-part Kardashian-Jenner special was a line about this other show, which has no title, but does have a premiere date: July 26.

In the meantime, E! will continue to refer to Bruce with masculine pronouns until the situation warrants a changeover to feminine ones. E! made this known too. “At this time, Bruce Jenner is choosing to not live publicly in the media as a woman, and will be referred to as Bruce Jenner and with male pronouns until he specifies otherwise,” read a portion of E!’s press release.

And our world grows more complicated every day.