First Review: Oprah: Tom Cruise specials

Hold onto your sofas. The Tom and Oprah show is back.

It’s hard not to see these two – count them, two – specials as pop culture propaganda: a TV mutual admiration society.

Oprah is awestruck by, or possibly jealous of, Tom’s fairytale homestead in Telluride, Colorado. Surrounded by snowcapped mountains, open countryside and picture-postcard forests, she even says, “I wish for you the peace this mountain can bring.” She neglected to consult the mountain.

Tom and Kate escort her through a Home Beautiful homestead (they hold hands a lot) until Kate makes a discreet exit to allow Tom the spotlight. Funny that.

Now the Big O sits on Tom’s couch. Watching these megastars bask in such affluence, dropping words like ‘loyalty’, ‘truth’, ‘honesty’, ‘the world’ and ‘mankind’ borders on the offensive. Naturally, they can’t resist talking about that moment back in 2005. Tom defends himself by claiming he was carried away with emotion for Kate at the time.

“I just felt that way,” he says. “It just took on, like, a whole other thing.”

He also concedes criticism of Brooke Shields during a Matt Lauer interview was erroneous. “What I regret is it came out wrong. I regret discussing it.”

Of psychiatry he now believes, “It’s an individual’s right to make a decision. I felt pressed. Looking at it afterwards I could have handled it better. I shot the messenger.”

Together with criticism of his views on Scientology (all of which translated into lousy box office and being dumped by Paramount), he now stays silent on the subject. And as for those constant rumours, Cruise simply says: “That’s laughable to me; I don’t know what to say. There’s certain things that you go, ‘oh come on.’”

Opie probably knows how he feels.

But there’s a chink in his armour when Oprah asks about how often his kids see Nicole Kidman. Momentarily thrown, he quickly gives a pat reply: “We share custody. Whenever.” Again, Oprah lets it pass. Where’s Louis Theroux when we need him?

I recall the days when Oprah competed with Donahue, who debated real issues for mainstream Americans. These days she simply does makeovers and celebrity shows. In her second hour, Cruise is feted by screaming women in the Harpo studios, who are all rewarded with a DVD anthology box set. Everyone, including Tom, goes home happy. Meanwhile poverty, education and injustice go begging on daytime TV.

Oprah’s Tom Cruise specials air 1pm Monday & Tuesday on TEN.