Watching Reality TV

Oh dear.  Before we talk about anything we need to talk about Jen.  Does she have self-image issues or what?  My husband and I were pretty disgusted.  I just wish that my biggest problem was how I looked in a photograph.  After Kail got to show off her HOH room (which was rather anti-climactic, I thought.  Looked like just another room to me), the group gathered around the wall of contestant photos and Jen burst into tears.  Why?  She didn’t like the picture of herself and the level of moaning, wailing and gnashing of teeth over this picture was downright absurd.  I literally couldn’t believe she was this upset over what looked like a very decent picture.  Shoot, I should be so lucky.  In fact, I get rather excited when I take a halfway normal picture.  Whatever Jen, you’ve lost whatever small level of respect I might have had for you.

I’m still waiting for EvelDick (sorry, I was spelling it wrong before) to be truly “evel” and  have yet to see anything.  He tried to strike up a conversation with his daughter and she pretty much gave him the silent treatment.  He promised in the confessional room not to backstab his daughter while in the house and even shed a tear.  I’m not saying that he’ll never be evil, but so far he’s pretty darn sympathetic.

Jessica and Carol’s “feud” has been put on hold but I have to say it’s a pretty tentative peace.  Carol seems fine with letting bygones be bygones because, you know, she’s grown up and matured and has bigger fish to fry.  Jessica, on the other hand, has announced she won’t trust Carol one bit and is likely to be still upset about that $5 that Carol owes her.  Yeah, safe to say that Jessica still bugs the crap out of me.

Dustin truly tried to get a dialog going with Joe and clear the air so they can get on with the game and remove that giant TARGET from their backs.  Joe, however, seemed reluctant to let anything go because he’s an unbelievable nutcase.  He truly seemed to think that Dustin was obsessed with him and that he was purposefully here to ruin Joe’s life and follow him around like a lovesick puppy.  Oh, and he also thinks that he is responsible for everything in Dustin’s life, like, in a good way.  As in Dustin was incapable of wiping his ass so Joe had to do that for him.  Dustin obviously thought this was pretty outrageous and I have to agree.  I think Joe needs a reality check.

The food challenge today involved buttered movie popcorn.  I highly doubt that any of these people will ever want buttered movie popcorn again for the rest of their lives.  The teams were split up and had butter pumped all over their bodies which was then transferred to a giant box of popcorn.  The team who transfers the most butter wins.  Red team did pretty good with their 37 pounds (or so) of butter but the Blue team kicked their rears with like 77 pounds of butter.  Reason?  Amber’s hair.  She would soak up the butter in her hair and then wring it out.  Pretty clever.  And SO GROSS.

Kail made her first nominations as well.  She honored her budding alliance with Mike, Nick, and Zach (some of the burliest guys in the competition) and put up Carol and Amber.  I don’t think either of them really deserve to go, but I can understand why she chose them.  And our first job as the American public directing America’s Player (Eric)?  Which person should he make up a sob story to.  Seriously.  We don’t get to pick the sob story.  No, of course not.  Just who he should tell it to.  You know, I was starting to get my hopes up for this little twist but it’s turning out to be pretty lame indeed.  So I think my answer is officially: “I don’t give a rat’s ass.”

Coming up Tuesday: Veto competition!  Woot!

You know, this looks to be a better season than I expected. Not that I didn’t expect it to be good, but that last year’s all-stars season was just so fantastically tantalizing that I didn’t expect anything to top it. And while the jury is out on that, this season seems to be able to hold it’s own.

The house, for starters, is very “Alice in Wonderland” themed, with extra large furniture and extra small furniture. Small doors, silly mirrors and goofy windows. Even the first HOH competition involved revolving mushrooms. Very cute.

The contestants are vapid, for the most part. But they’re always pretty vapid so that’s nothing new. Some of them I seriously would like to put a muzzle on though. And Joe leads that pack for me. He’s annoying with a capital A. Flamboyant is an understatement and while I don’t necessarily have a problem with that, I think he goes over the top. To make matters even worse, he has an ex-boyfriend (Dustin) in the house and is so horrible about that fact that it literally causes pain to watch him. Anna Nicole look-alike Danielle has a rival too, and it’s her father (who admittedly goes by the name EvilDick). You sorta feel sorry for her, though you don’t quite hate him yet either. I’ll be interested to see that whole thing play out. I wonder who’s “side” I’ll end up on. The other “enemy” pair is Carol and Jessica who used to be friends in high school but aren’t anymore because Carol owes Jessica $5 or some such nonsense. I think I favor Carol in this particular equation though I’m sure they’re both pretty detestable. But Jessica’s hair bothers me and I can’t take cheerleaders seriously.

Kail, a 37 year old mother and “multi-business owner” (read: rich) won the first HOH competition and we haven’t even gotten to see her room yet. Eric is a shrimpy (5′7) guy from Chicago who is “America’s Player” and I will admit to being more intrigued by this twist now than I was before I saw the show. I’m starting to see the real potential in this deal and I think it might work out for the best. Can’t wait to see how the show ends up using this. I hope CBS doesn’t “micromanage” too much.

So we’ll return on Sunday for the nominations, to learn more about “America’s Player” and see if anyone (Joe and Dustin, namely) has killed each other yet. If you missed last night’s episode, (shame on you) you can catch it on the CBS website in it’s entirety. The internet so totally rules.

Sorry for the lack of postage yesterday.  I hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July celebrations.  I had to remind myself all day long that it wasn’t a Saturday after all.  These mid-week holidays really throw off my schedule!  There’s not much stirring in the world of reality TV news this morning, but there IS something that I wanted to remind you all of.  Yep, CBS’s “Big Brother 8″ premieres tonight at 8pm (check your local listings!).  If you’re a reality junkie like me, you won’t want to miss it.  Sounds as if the show has some great twists and intrigue set up for us to enjoy and this should help us get by until our normal shows come back in the fall.

Recently, host Julie Chen was asked about her hosting style for the show.  She’s developed a reputation for being robotic and wooden.  Turns out?  That was her strategy all along.  According to an interview in USA Today, “Chen says she has played her role as straight as possible, displaying no emotion, for example, toward eliminated contestants she might personally dislike.”  She has tried to apply journalistic standards to a show that doesn’t really call for them in the first place.  Some speculate the only reason she’s still employed is she’s married to Les Moonves, the network president.  I don’t think she’s that bad, but she’s not that good either.  Still, it’s gotten to the point where when I turn on “Big Brother”, I expect to see Julie Chen.

And I’ll be expecting to see her come 8pm tonight.  Who’s with me?

The one overall distracting element on last night’s show was Melissa’s hair.  Her hair has always been distracting, don’t get me wrong, but last night it was the worst it’s ever been.  See, in that picture there it appears to be brushed and somewhat controlled.  Somewhat.  Last night, it looked like a rat’s nest.  And about the best she does to control it during service is to pull it back into a sloppy pony tail.  I think she thinks her hair is beautiful or something but all I see when I look at her is hair getting in the food and that freaks me out.  Didn’t help that she had a raging zit on her chin either, but I’m not really holding that against her as we all know those darned things show up completely unwarranted.  But the HAIR.  OMG.

The woman herself was little better as she barked out ineffectual orders and dragged the Red Team down. Because of her, the Red Team lost the reward challenge and missed out on getting pampered at a spa.  Instead, they had to decorate Hell’s Kitchen for a wedding that they would be serving. I felt bad for the bride and groom already.

The night was mostly focused on Melissa and how much she sucks and how much everyone else hates her.  Even the Blue Team was skeptical of her and they don’t have to deal with her like the Red Team does.  At least, not yet.

The dinner service actually went pretty well.  For the first time ever, all the customers (this time wedding guests) were served.  Ramsay was apparently testing out their ability to properly time foods.  The Blue Team excelled during the service while the Red Team stumbled (mostly due to Melissa, of course) and found themselves the “winners” of the evening.  Jen was selected as the “best of the worst” and in turn nominated both Bonnie and Melissa for elimination.  That’s the choice I would have made, not necessarily wanting Bonnie to go home yet but better than to nominate Julia who does not deserve in any way to be on the chopping block.  No, this was all about getting rid of Melissa.

Color me shocked when Gordon snatched Melissa back from the brink of destruction, however.   For whatever reason he decided to give her another chance to prove herself a decent cook (since until this week, she’d been pretty good) and had her switch to the Blue Team.  The boys looked decidedly unhappy to have her join them, but only Rock griped on camera.  The women looked visibly relieved to have her gone from their team and have Bonnie safe.  Melissa?  She’d better thank her lucky stars.

Damnit, I have a whole ‘nother week to look at that damned hair.

Wow, either the world is truly coming to an end and this is a sign of armageddon or maybe we’re seeing a shift towards more rational thought.  Or maybe (just maybe) I started a trend.  Reality TV website and blog reality blurred today published a story about “Deadliest Catch”’s marathon and special airing today and also to discuss this new style of reality television.  They also announced that they would “devote increased focus on these compelling, personality-driven, narrative reality series” (I can only assume they’re including shows like “Ice Road Truckers” in that grouping) that they have until now largely neglected.  They even mention more traditional reality shows as being “contrived, manipulated shows” and that the “docudramas” are “grounded in actual reality, and as such are often more entertaining and dramatic”.

I’m heartened by this story, not just because I’ve said something very similar recently, but because it resonates with truth to me.  These newly styled reality shows are far more entertaining, immensely more gripping and something that I find I can actually CARE about because it is, in fact, REAL.  And shouldn’t that be the essence of reality TV?