Entertainment

NO PLACE LIKE ‘HOMELAND’

IF you’ve ever had your tweez ers confiscated before a flight, so you can’t -what? – epilate fellow passengers to death, you are already familiar with Homeland Security.

If you’ve ever had to put your lip gloss in a Ziplock bag before passing through airport security (as though a baggy can keep a lip gloss bomb from detonating), you are also familiar with some of the ever-changing rules of Homeland Security.

While we’re all used to these sometimes silly, sometimes humiliating, often over-the-top but usually necessary security measures imposed since 9/11 that are about as much fun as a two-hour MRI, they still nonetheless make us feel safer once we’re actually strapped in and ready to take off. But are these measures worth a whole series? Not really.

Tapping into our paranoia, while managing to fill the void with the one law enforcement job not yet covered by a reality show, tonight ABC debuts “Homeland Security USA,” an unscripted series that follows the on-duty doings of border guards at various entry points in the US.

And after watching one episode, I must say, sometimes a job needs scripting (thus all the scripted cop shows).

While some of the “finds” the security officers uncover at border crossings tonight at the Los Angeles International Airport, at the Blaine, Wash./Canada border, at the US/Mexican border and while patrolling the desert outside Tucson, are interesting, most are not.

In fact, the wannabe drug smugglers and illegal immigrants they nab on tonight’s show turn out to be among the dopier humans on the planet.

For example, there are the two guys crossing in from Canada at the automobile checkpoint. On foot. With all their luggage. Worse, they say they’re headed for California. On foot?

Then there’s the guy trying to smuggle a woman in from Mexico by hiding her under his front seat. The idiot is nailed because he’s trying to cross with cardboard license plates attached to his car!

Finally, there’s a woman who arrives with no American dollars on her person. Then, worse, they open her luggage and discover – oh no! – belly dancing outfits. A real danger to US security – a Swiss belly dancer without a work visa looking to steal bread out of the mouths of hard-working American belly dancers! Your tax dollars at work for you!

After watching people get nailed, I am left with one thought: Thank God they never found the baby powder container I snuck into Italy last year with my friend’s ashes. Oops. Forget I said that.

“Homeland Security USA” Tonight at 8 on ABC