Reality Check

In general, we're suckers for a good reality TV show, if that's not an oxymoron. When I say we, I mean Dara and I and sometimes the passing-thru kids. We guiltily watch Simon ripping contestants on American Idol, backstabbing on Survivor, and high school like antics on Beauty and the Geek. Some of our favorites have been one-offs. We liked Amish in America, where Amish kids on rumspringa were exposed to the shallowest of shallow LA lifestyle. Probably the best of all time was the Joe Shmoe Show, where there was really only one contestant in a houseful of survivor-like houseguests, and everyone else was an actor with a specific assignment to screw with the head of the poor guy who was not in on the joke. Each actor was a parody of the usual roundup of reality show contestants: the "gay guy," the "scheming bitch," the "hot babe."

There are some shows where we split in terms of our shared bad taste. I admit to a fondness for Wife Swap, where the show's producers switch spouses between two families specifically chosen to cause pain and conflict. Dara hates it. The one she likes that I can't take is Big Brother. In Big Brother, contestants are locked in a house together for months, cameras bristling from every angle in every room, with the usual conflicts that come with close contact and the tension of trying to be the last one standing as viewers vote one out each week. With this in mind, I was amused to read about the controversy the original Big Brother in the UK stirred up recently. Charges of Mel Gibson like racism (I know Keith would not want to miss out!) have the show's ratings going through the roof and are even disrupting British diplomacy. Hilarious. Dara and Kyla both enjoyed the British Big Brother show while we were over there. It seems to run every day on television, while mercifully here it is limited to the off-season and once a week even then.