On the Road With Oprah and Gayle

In its new season, The Oprah Winfrey Show is featuring a multi-part road-trip series, which follows Oprah and her BFF Gayle King driving cross-country in a Chevrolet (and endlessly chanting that "See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet" line—Chevrolet must be loving this).

So far, two parts of this series (featured on Tuesdays; the duo hit the road earlier this summer) have aired. It's a sort of Thelma and Louise lite, complete with best-friend spats (which seem a bit manufactured for the cameras—unless Gayle really is that annoying—and of course they do reference the gay rumors), slumming it with the real peeps (Oprah visits Dairy Queen for the first time in 21 years!!  She gets a vanilla cone!!), and the politically correct (the pair visit an Indian reservation and earnestly discuss the poverty that exists there, with Gayle exclaiming that she had no idea people in this country still lived in such poverty…! What?  Has being Oprah's best friend really taken her that far from reality??).

Some of the scenes ring particularly false (a desk clerk at a motel asks, “Where are you folks from?” and doesn’t seem to notice the camera crew following the pair). But the series does have postcard appeal: The scenery is pretty spectacular, particularly, so far, in Colorado.

And I am looking forward to the “Wedding Crashers” episode. Come on, admit it: Wouldn’t you love it if Oprah crashed your wedding?

By Rebecca Stropoli