It's one of the realities of journalism that anniversary stories are often hard to write because you need a fresh angle every year.

MSNBC has come up with quite a creative one for Monday's 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.

The McVeigh Tapes: Confessions of an American Terrorist

Airing Monday at 9 p.m. on MSNBC

Three stars (Out of four)

Monday's two-hour special, "The McVeigh Tapes: Confessions of an American Terrorist," beginning at 9 p.m., uses computer graphics to turn an actor into a Timothy McVeigh look-alike as audiotapes of the Western New York terrorist's bizarre, dangerous thinking are played.

The look-alike gimmick will get attention but it doesn't add much because the actor only slightly resembles McVeigh even after the computer graphics.

For those who have forgotten details about McVeigh's plot and his accomplices, MSNBC gives a step-by-step re-creation of the bombing with the use of the actor, computer graphics and the tapes.

The tapes come from 45 hours recorded by Buffalo News reporter Lou Michel while he interviewed McVeigh in prison. Michel subsequently co-wrote a 2001 best-selling book with Buffalo News reporter Dan Herbeck, "American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and The Oklahoma City Bombing."

Michel, who was part of the prison scenes that were re-created, and Herbeck are prominently featured in the special, which is narrated by Rachel Maddow. They do a good job, too, detailing facts from their book, especially considering they aren't exactly TV veterans.

Maddow explains the timeliness of the project, which arrives when anti-government sentiment in the United States has been renewed to a scary degree.

Of course, the special has something the book couldn't have — McVeigh's voice.

It enables viewers to hear the dispassionate, controlled, unemotional terrorist rationalize the worst act of domestic violence in our nation's history.

It is pretty scary and chilling stuff.

Michel explains that McVeigh was bullied in high school and after he became a war hero came to the conclusion that the American government was a bully, too.

The reporters engage in some amateur psychology, which is augmented by professional psychologists who see a deranged sociopath with a sharp intellect that was frighteningly misused.

McVeigh is smart enough to try and explain away his lack of remorse and emotion as something he learned from military training. It makes him sound even more frightening.

It is the faces and voices of those who lost loved ones and still live with serious injuries that are the most compelling and help illustrate how deranged and delusional McVeigh was before his execution.

The details aren't exactly new, but it is a journalist's duty to remind viewers that it is important to keep an eye out for the dangerous people and thinking that are out there.

Emeril's back but not better

Now on to something completely different, the 8 p.m. Sunday premiere of "The Emeril Lagasse Show" on ION has a local affiliate, WPXJ, Channel 51.

The Emeril Lagasse Show

Premieres at 8 p.m. Sunday on ION (Channel 51).

Two stars (out of four)

ION, which has made its prime-time living recently on repeats of such popular network shows as "Ghost Whisperer" and "Criminal Minds," should have gone somewhere else for an original weekly show.

After all, Lagasse has been on cable and network TV (his former NBC sitcom is a classic bomb) before. This time, he has a band led by Dave Koz and the Kozmos helping him as he dishes out recipes, tries to interview guests and introduces musical acts.

Sunday's opener, "Emeril's Housewarming Party," becomes painful to watch even before first guest Martha Stewart arrives to help him make kielbasa and pierogies. There also are visits from a wine expert and singer Michelle Williams of "Destiny's Child."

There are so many plugs for a national department store and a company that makes aluminum foil that Emeril's show seems more like a paid program than an entertainment program.

The host is clumsy as an interviewer and his early attempt for some Jay Leno humor with on-the-street interviews falls as flat as bread. Then there's the strained weekly bit, "Bam for Your Buck," in which members of a studio audience play a game to win prizes from the aforementioned department store.

Future episodes of themed-programs will include celebrity visits from Eli Manning, Jennie Garth, Tim Gunn, Steve Schirripa and Sammy Hagar.

They better arrive with good material, because Emeril certainly doesn't know how to cook up any interesting questions.

apergament@buffnews.com