Summer is an exciting time for me, and not only because it gives me the opportunity to "adjust the bass and let the Alpines blast" Will Smith's infectious anthem "Summertime." I love summer because it's the time of year when the networks air all of the reality shows they don't want to taint quality scripted shows on the Fall schedule such as The King of Queens. Because, you know, he lives in Queens but he's not like a King at all... not even of his house, so it's a little turnabout! Ah, comedy....

Anyway, for one reason of another I feel compelled to share with you my thoughts on a couple of this summer's reality shows, and so without great fanfare I give you The Spoonbender.com's Summertime Reality Bytes, because, you know Reality Bites was a horrible Ben Stiller movie, the thing is about reality shows, and bytes have something to do with computers, which is the instrument allowing you to delight in this and me!

Dancing with the Stars
The fact that I enjoyed this show surprised me. I'm no fan of ballroom dancing, the costumes the women wore were, while undeniably skimpy, somehow too laiden with support hose and sequins to be particularly erotic, and the dancing wasn't bad enough to deliver any of the laughs you'd get from other people-falling-down-while-trying-to-do-something shows like America's Funniest Home Videos. What the show did deliver were facial expressions. I challenge any man to stare into the face of Evander Holyfield while he's trying to cha-cha-cha and not smile. It was like watching a toddler try to hold in diarrhea. Or look into the New Kid on the Block's face as he's scolded by the judges yet again. It's the kind of thinly veiled rage, incredulousness, and magnificent frustration only possible in a child star reduced to the ultimate humiliation, the absolute nadir of show business. Or look at the smile on John O'Hurley's face. Sure, he was playing it up, but he was in on the joke and obviously having a lot of fun. Despite my cynicism, I found his attitude to be infectious.

Hell's Kitchen
Chef Gordon Ramsey is the Trump reality show archetype taken to it's logical extreme, only because I don't expect to see a host who elimates contestants by viciously raping them, and then showering them in offal to be on screen in America anytime soon. He's insults and berates the contestants with fuck-strewn epithets, throws food at them, and insists they respond by saying nothing more than "Yes, Chef." But he's not intentionally funny. The single greatest thing about the show is how he pronounces words like lasagna ("lass-san-yeah"), paella ("pie-ell-ah"), risotto ("ris-saught-oh") -- with that uniquely English refusal to acknowledge that any word is taken from another tongue.

Rock Star: Inxs
This is probably my favorite reality show of this summer, and I'd expect I'm not the only person in my demographic to feel that way. The reason is this: it's essentially American Idol, but watching it doesn't make you feel like an 11-year-old girl or the kind of person who wants to put 11-year-old girls into his cargo van. That's not to say there is no illicit joy in watching the show, but the biggest concern you've when you want to sleep with Daphna Dove is VD, not the PD. Additionally, the songs contestants perform are the kind of thing you'd find on classic rock radio, so I think the barrier of entry for old folks is less. That is to say, you don't have to know any Usher songs to make a judgment on whether the performance sucked.

But my favorite thing about the show is the prize -- the winner becomes the lead singer of Inxs. I mean, what a horrible fucking prize. There are a few people on there who were obviously musical theater performers before the show -- Mig and Ty Taylor, for example -- and I'm sure they'd love fronting Inxs as much as they would touring in Pippin. But can you imagine Brandon, Daphna, Jordis, or Marty in that band singing "New Sensation" at some outback Cookabooga county fair night after night? They'd blow their fucking brains out.


Daphna Dove, above, is happy to be on TV and everything, but really can't get into any Inxs, except "The Devil Inside," and that only kind of.

Analogcabin @ 10:44 AM
Permalink |