Instant message

Show about motivational speakers falls flat | Harrison Scott Key

The Messengers (TLC, Sunday, 10 p.m. ET) is trying to find America's next motivational speaker. The season begins with 10 contestants, like the poet, the missionary, the teacher. Each week, they take a field trip to feel someone else's pain: living with the homeless, working on a migrant farm, and so on.

They then write and deliver a speech (with topics like "Charity" and "Struggle") for an audience and two judges. Each week, one speaker is delivered a message of his own: Go home.

These days, when you can't trust a college graduate to speak clearly and when the president stumbles over syntax like Gerald Ford over stairs, The Messengers is not a bad idea. Maybe this show will teach us what a great speech sounds like. Maybe. But probably not.