I will take anything the reality tv community throws at me. I will take Paris and Nicole at summer camp, even though I know that their supporting “counselors” are hired actors. I will take MTV’s brutally agendized portrayal of sorority life, and I will take their starry eyed belief that one day P Diddy will put together a band that people will actually want to listen to. I will take culinary competitions even though you can’t taste food through your tv screen. I will follow the day by day lives of playboy bunnies, little people, professional skateboarders and their oversized best friends; I will root wholeheartedly for people I’ve never met as they follow their dreams of becoming models or fashion designers or pirate masters or backup singers or teenage interns at Seventeen magazine. What I won’t take is any show that makes me want to carve out my ovaries with a rusty spoon (this also applies to the movie Because I Said So, but that’s an issue for another day). I don’t watch reality shows because I need to hate myself for being female, I watch them because I want to see people who have worse lives than I do and feel better about myself as the result of it. I should be able to get that without considering spending the requisite year living as a man before applying to one of the three major sexual reassignment centers in the country.

I feel like this is a subtle, but important distinction—these shows should allow, or even encourage, you to hate specific women. Cami on Laguna Beach, that heinous bitch from the first Apprentice that played the race card at every available opportunity, Janice Dickinson, take your pick. They should not, however, encourage you to hate women en masse. And that’s all that Age of Love does. It picks at the insecurities of women that already have more than enough to go around when it comes to dating, and it turns them into catty, ridiculous, desperate people that you don’t want to meet in a back ally. Show premise here, trying to put it into words is giving me rage. They’re calling the women in their 40s “cougars” and the ones in their 20s “kittens.” That should be enough to get you on my side.

Now’s probably a bad time to make a joke about hot flashes, eh?

Aside from the fact that this preys on every single insecurity that women have, and that they’re relying on an Aussie to decide, ONCE AND FOR ALL, what men really want (without giving him the option of Anonymous Sex, SportsCenter, and Reheated Pasta, so I don’t have a chance to prove the theory I’ve been carefully crafting since freshman year), my main issue with this is the basic helplessness of half the contestants. *If* tectonic plates shift and the planets align and birds start flying backwards and he picks a 40 year old, the women in their 20s can console themselves by saying that they will, someday, be 40, so it’s just a matter of time before they have what men want. But if the sun rises tomorrow and Saturday follows Friday and death and taxes persist and he picks a 20 year old, what do the 40 year olds get to tell themselves? That The Men of the universe have spoken?

We keep our 20 year olds in boxes- they stay fresher that way.

I was wary when Ashton Kutcher coined the reality show term “social experiment,” but he went on to give me Beauty & The Geek and I forgave him. I don’t forgive you, NBC, for this social experiment that can bring no good into the world. Please return me to a steady diet of The Biggest Loser (Puns! The 10 o’clock show is completely different from the 8 o’clock one!) and 30 Rock.

Love,
CRISTIN

As I mentioned earlier today, Creature Comforts got cancelled and it makes me very sad. It seems like they only aired two episodes before it got the can. However, what I saw of the show was delightful and now I’m trying to figure out how to get a copy of the British DVDs (it’s an American version of a British series).

The concept of the show is simple: you take interviews with real people and animate them with clay animals. The result is a sweet and often hilarious series that you can totally watch with your nieces and nephews (or kids — if you’ve taken that leap) and neither one of you will be bored.

Here’s a bit of the first episode. As you watch, you’ll definitely develop your favorite recurring characters (mine include the kid snails, the bird on the horse’s head and the WASPy cats). The rest is available at the CBS Web site and around YouTube.

Who knows? Maybe it’ll get picked up by someone on cable.

Home of the unironic Journey sing-along.

• That show NBC cancelled way at the beginning of the season, Kidnapped, is going to see its remaining episodes air.
• Here are some details on what The Office: Season 3 DVDs are going to look like.
• Pirate Master will move its booty to Tuesdays.
• Big Brother 8 will be ‘more interactive.’
• NBC cancelled Creature Comforts, just as I discovered how wonderful it was. I urge you to watch the old episodes on the CBS Web site.
• TV Guide rates summer programming.
• Treat Williams? Everwood? Anybody?
• Aaron Sorkin wrote a play about TV’s inventor and it’s going to Broadway.
• Bon Jovi on MTV: Unplugged.  You know it.

If you don’t like The Go! Team then we can’t be friends anymore. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it has to be.

“Grip Like a Vice” is the band’s new single from the forthcoming Proof of Youth. It’s classic Go! Team with huge, rumbling percussion, searing guitars and the kind of energy that makes your ass involuntarily shake. The song does feature the notable nonsense lyric rapping of Ninja, who (I’m guessing) will be more of a presence on the sophomore effort.

The video is nothing special, but it nicely echoes the sonic collage aspect of the music. That, and it’s all retro-double-Dutch-old-school-blaring-boombox-ish.

I have tomato, basil, mozzarella, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Mmmmmmm…

• E-Kristin says one Hero was missing from a recent press event. Is that a sign?
• Planet Earth HD DVDs are selling like hotcakes. Brutal, bloody hotcakes.
• Steve Carell swoons over John Krasinski too.
• TV Guide has some news on the next season of 24.
• A preview of Stargate SG-1’s finale.
• American Dad has been renewed.
• Drew Carey is hosting a game show.
• The Office will get syndicated on TBS.
• The whole Isaiah Washington mess is getting ugly, out of hand and boring. All at the same time.
• The Indecision 2008 Web site is up.
• The next co-host on The View could be a gay man. This just in: gay men aren’t women.  It’s just a fact.
• The guy who played Johnny Sack is the only Sopranos cast member to say that the finale blew.
• The AV Club talks to the man behind Spongebob.
• Steve-o from Jackass has some awful show.

It’s Thursday. You know what that means? You probably don’t, because I just kind of decided this. Thursday is official Who Would Win in a Fight day for the summer. Think of it as a reward for making it almost all the way through the week.

Seems like last week’s battle between Studio 60 pill-head Matt Albie and bed-hopping brain surgeon Derek Shepherd ended in a decisive victory for our conflicted comedy writer. I support the decision due to Albie’s unhinged nature and comparative bulk.

This week finds a troubled rich kid going head-to-head with yet another doctor named Shephard. It’s Veronica Mars’ on-again-off-again beau Logan Echolls versus Lost’s castaway leader Jack Shephard.

Logan Echolls

Strengths:

• Kind of a sociopath
• Way buff
• Not easily intimidated

Weaknesses:

• Used to pushing around people who are smaller than him (e.g. Piz, that reporter spy from early in season three, organizing bum fights)
• Veronica doesn’t like it when he fights
• Growing rap sheet

Secret Weapon: Baby-face may inspire underestimation

Jack Shephard

Strengths:

• Abrasive stubble could be used as a weapon
• Can take a punch
• Strong-willed, hard to push around

Weaknesses:

• He’s no kid
• When on the island, he’s weary from being exposed to the elements
• When off the island he’s drunk

Secret Weapon: Good at harnessing his rage

A highly underutilized instrument.

• A heart-to-heart with J-Wahl.
• Wayne Brady will host a game show where people have to remember song lyrics. Like every awful theater nerd party you’ve ever been to.
• TV Guide weighs the reality cooking shows against each other.
• VH1 has a bunch of new shows, including a Salt and Pepa reality show and a game show for models.
• Law and Order blurs the line between entertainment and politics even further by entertaining the idea of casting a former senator.
• Studio 60 with a laugh track.
• The Office will be a video game.
• Smashing Pumpkins will do Letterman twice in July. This is going to hurt.
• Ghost Hunters is back.  Boo.
• AMC has greenlit a drama series with Bryan Cranston.
• Planned Parenthood gets all liberal crazy on FOX and CBS (and rightfully so) for refusing to air condom ads.
• Finally, here’s an awesome way to waste some time: the top 10 moments from 30 Rock.

Via TV Squad, here’s an incredible Japanese game show that’s reminiscent of both Tetris and the Bugs Bunny cartoons where people leave silhouette-shaped holes in the walls after they run through them.

Wait for the part when the huge dude tries his hand.

God, I want to go to Japan.

My most recent mental association with Scott Baio (and, of course, there are many) is the scene in that slightly devestating and oddly fascinating book about dudes who scam on women for sport, The Game, where a not very attractive but evidentally very skilled PUA (pick up artist) steals Scott’s woman out from under him at a bar. Who steals Chachi’s babe?

Wow, I can’t believe I just admitted I to reading The Game. Moving on.

It will SHOCK you to your very core to learn that Scott Baio is now 45 and still single. It will shock you slightly less to learn that VH1 is exploiting these factors in a reality show creatively titles “Scott Baio is 45… and Single.” I have no idea what to expect from this, but I’m hoping for a cross between So NoTorious and Lisa Loeb’s #1 Single.

Looks like I might be out of luck on that one.

Just add rollerskates and a tank top.

• Kathy Griffin comments on her love affair with the gays.
• Dale from Top Chef talks to the Chicago Tribune.
• Jenna Fischer is updating her blog from her sickbed.
• Rob (of Amber and Rob) is hosting some reality show where the prize is $10 million.
• The next season of Survivor might be an all-star season.
• Motley Crue is blaming Rock Star for its financial problems. And not the fact Dr. Feelgood was twenty years ago.
• It seems like a lot of people are watching The Closer.
• Dr. Seuss’ thugs are making Christina Applegate change the name of her sitcom.
• Katherine Hiegl has her own line of scrubs.
• Alias’ David Anders will, in fact, be on Heroes.
• Ask Ausiello has news on House and James Marsters.
• Oy. That Anna Nicole judge got his own show.