TiVo Alert: Deeper inside Anna Nicole

Paris Hilton may be this week’s famous-for-being famous celebutard tragedy, and Lindsay Lohan was last week’s movie star trainwreck– but when it comes to absolute staying power, real bombshell status and saturation coverage, no one in decades has topped Anna Nicole Smith.

So what’s another three hours?

E! isn’t kidding when it brags it’s unleashing “the most in-depth documentary ever” on Anna Nicole– ever! — with a three-hour special event premiering tonight at 8 pm.

The Life & Death of Anna Nicole rounds up more than 25 family members, friends, colleagues and lovers to take us through the troubled tabloid sex siren’s life one mo’ time, stopping along the way at liaisons, centerfolds, buffets, orgies and reality TV cameras–but lingering longest in that final year and final hours in that Everglades hotel room.
Even if you’ve had your fill of Anna Nicole, tune in or record this one if only to see how real long-form tabloid television documentaries are supposed to look. Producer Michael Lynn, who helmed this behemoth, is the top producer in the field. The E! True Hollywood Babylon bio king of television has focused his unblinking noirish lens on the secrets of everyone from Kathie Lee Gifford to Bill Clinton to Andy of Mayberry to Halle Berry to Olivia Newton-John. Anna Nicole is his epic subject (we’d say “Moby Dick” but that’s not quite right).

He’ll at least put the mainstream slugs at 20/20 and Dateline in their place. (And it’s almost enough to forgive E! for killing Dr. Ruehl in Sunset Tan.)

–Tabloid Baby