"The Smoking Gun" on TV

Television is an efficient biosphere where the perfect predator evolves for every species in the food chain. If reality shows are the coral reef of prime time, then the television-oriented Web site, the Smoking Gun, is its crown-of-thorns starfish.

It was the Smoking Gun (thesmokinggun.com) that revealed in 2000 that Rick Rockwell, the beau ideal of the hit FOX show "Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire," had once been under a restraining order from a former girlfriend. The Smoking Gun, which digs up arrest records, mug shots, show business contracts and divorce papers, became a tip sheet for journalists and a cult Web site for reality show aficionados. It managed to embarrass seemingly squeaky-clean contestants on reality shows from CBS's "Survivor" to Fox's "Joe Millionaire." (Most memorably, it uncovered the early bondage films of a bachelorette, Sarah Kozer.)

Inevitably, but contrary to the laws of nature, the Web site will mutate tonight into the very thing it feeds on: a television show.

"Smoking Gun TV" is Court TV's effort to lighten its deadly earnest schedule ("Forensic Files" and "Catherine Crier Live") with an irreverent, but court-document-based look at celebrity misdeeds. The cable channel bought the Web site three years ago. The host of "Smoking Gun TV" is Mo Rocca, a lanky political reporter on Comedy Central's "Daily Show With Jon Stewart."