I could fill pages with examples from the 1990s on, but a small sampling should do. Crossing Over with John Edward, a program purporting to let people communicate with the dead, was a big hit for the USA Network. Back then, when TLC was still called The Learning Channel, the taglines for a show during its Conspiracy Week were “Did they really catch the man behind the Oklahoma City bombing? Or was there a conspiracy?” In this century, especially in the last decade, TV really gave itself over to the wanton retailing of fantasies as realities.fn3
