Megyn Kelly's special wasn't even good entertainment journalism

Megyn Kelly's long-awaited interview Tuesday night with Donald Trump, after he harangued her for months for the sin of doing what journalists are supposed to do and asking him a tough question in the context of a Republican debate, has already come in for its deserved share of criticism.

"The two spent quite a few of their minutes in pleasant banter.

Kelly's attempts to plumb Trump's psyche were an exercise in drive-by futility," my Washington Post colleague Erik Wemple wrote of their sit-down, which was the centerpiece of the much-hyped special "Megyn Kelly Presents." "Hahahaha: Let's now make light of Trump goading his millions of followers into sexist harassment."

But while the way Kelly folded before Trump was certainly the most consequential part of the special in terms of presidential politics, the rest of "Megyn Kelly Presents" deserves attention, too.

If Kelly is vying for a Barbara Walters or Oprah Winfrey-like perch where she becomes the go-to person for a certain kind of big interview, "Megyn Kelly Presents" wasn't much of an audition tape.

The special wasn't just bad news. It was bad entertainment.

Let's start with the question of the lineup.

It's always difficult with a pre-taped special to choose guests who will be relevant to the news cycle when the special airs, and on this score, Kelly and her producers did a decidedly mixed job.

Laverne Cox is a fascinating person, a high-profile representative of an important human rights movement, and the star of a buzzy TV show, "Orange Is the New Black," that returns in a few weeks: So far, a good choice.

Michael Douglas is certainly a respected actor and someone with an interesting, if very, very well-known life story. Douglas' connection to the news cycle seems merely to be that he starred in "The American President," the movie Ted Cruz channeled when he defended his wife, Heidi, from Trump's attacks.

And finally, Kelly decided to interview defense attorney Robert Shapiro, who might have been a fresher, more relevant subject when "American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson," in which John Travolta played Shapiro, was airing on FX.

But the first season of "American Crime Story" wrapped up more than a month ago.

Given that two of Kelly's three entertainment-oriented subjects had a relatively tenuous connection to the news, it was her job as an interviewer to make some, and on that score, "Megyn Kelly Presents" was a bust.

Her rapport with Shapiro was livelier and more natural than the other segments, perhaps because they're both lawyers. But it was tiresome to watch her give a platform to Shapiro to try, yet again, to polish the reputation that he tarnished in the Simpson trial and to flog old theories about murder weapons in the case.

With Cox and Douglas, Kelly focused on emotion. But empathy isn't her natural register; watching her moments of attempted girl-talk about handsome men with Cox were decidedly cringe-worthy.

And unlike Walters and Winfrey, those masters of the genre, Kelly seems to have missed that there's a distinction between asking people how they feel and when they've been hurt -- something she did with Trump, as well -- and asking questions that elicit displays of feelings, along with honest and revealing answers.

The closest Kelly got to hitting that balance was when she asked Cox whether she had ever attempted suicide.