Mon, June 14, 2004

The final Survivor: All-Stars column may well be coming, because just as I was about to give up, I got a special request from a dear friend, and fulfilling it would mean not having to buy a going away present. So, it may be posted eventually, and you may not care, but whatevs.

Here's what I am doing, though. I'm recognizing the flaw in the system here, and instituting a new feature, "This Week In Reality," which will serve as an occasional update on a handful of shows that I've decided to unironically watch this summer, since summer is the time of year when the TV networks (and also Fox) decide to do away with narrative shows altogether and just blanket us with reality from sea to shining sea. It's kind of funny; the September-to-May season is still kindasorta observed with regard to the narrative shows, but the reality shows can start anytime and anywhere they want. They're kind of like a bright pink rash, and the period between June and August is like the time between running out of calamine lotion and driving to the store to get more.

Herewith, a few dispatches from the land of reality.

For Love Or Money

Yeah, I said For Love Or Money. What of it? I'm watching this show, for reasons that are entirely my own. Among them, boredom. Also among them, my sister was hooked on For Love Or Money 2 when she was visiting last year, so we watched one episode and I have to say, it sucks you in. (Sure, it also just plain sucks. But, out of the romance-reality set, it's got the best production values, and one of the better concepts.) The new series has (you guessed it!) more twists, and they're fairly interesting to watch. I also like the concept of eliminating 10 of the 16 women in the first episode. That leaves a lot of time for random drama to unfold from here on out. One sad part about that, though, was the elimination of Heather, who managed to very quickly become the Rupert Boneham of the competition. She kept whimpering about "my one chance" and how if she didn't marry Preston then she'd probably die alone. The Swan pretty much scraped the dregs of the life-ruining reality show experience, but Heather comes pretty close – even though 25-year-old Preston insists that their age difference isn't a factor, when she's eliminated she manages to feel like a withered old hag at the plum age of 33. Sorry, kids. The reality machine has to eat, and shattered self esteem is the only thing that feeds it.

What's really interesting about this show (and the abysmal Meet My Folks had a similar problem) is that the point is that if the girl chooses the money at the end (instead of love), then she can theoretically have both. NBC can't forbid they guy from continuing to date her. Maybe he would be turned off by the fact that she'd choose money over him, but why? It's a smart move. They can still hook up after the show is over. Plus, she's got all that money! Why wouldn't you want to be with the smart rich chick who beat the system? The show makes all this drama over the fact that they're lying to each other (the girls don't tell Preston that they have the money as an option at the end, and Preston doesn't tell them that he knows about the money), but all the lies are contractually mandated lies. If any of them said, "You know, we have the option to choose money instead of you," they'd be booted right off the show, and probably sued! So, who cares about the lying?

Currently, I'm rooting hard for Rachel. She's supposed to be the evil bitch character, although there's another woman – Andrea, the ugly blonde one – who's much more annoying. Rachel is just a little down on herself, and as a result, she thinks Preston doesn't like her, so she has no chance at love and might as well play for money. That's not really that evil, when you think about it. I mean, everyone is there to play the game. It's a reality show, not a singles mixer. I think people just don't like her because she wanted a reason why Rebekah chose her not to go on the first round of dates. Which I think is a reasonable request. She specifically said she didn't mind, obviously it was hard for Rebekah to just pick three people like that. But Jamie and Leslie both got reasons, so it is kind of weird that Rachel didn't. Anyway, Rachel's check currently says $1, so if she wins and takes the money, she'll be very sorry indeed. (The girls don't know how much their checks are worth until they either win or get eliminated. If he sends them home, they get to reveal their amounts right before burning their checks.) However, out of the three million dollar checks remaining after the first round of eliminations, Preston sent two packing in the second round. (Including the token black girl; I'm sure the producers shit themselves.) With only one million dollar check remaining in the game, I became pretty confident that the producers would introduce a correction – sorry, a "twist" – which would allow the checks to get switched around. Sure enough, the teaser at the end of the first episode indicates exactly that. That's the great thing about really bad reality shows like FLOM; they give everything away. There was a recap before the first episode (a precap?), which gave away the whole thing with the separate checks, and most of the drama of the first episode or two. Plus, the episodes are very quick to watch on TiVo, because every commercial break starts with "Coming Up..." and ends with "You Just Saw..."

So, Rachel could still end up with a million dollar check. I hope she does. She's not the hottest of the group – that title goes to Jamie, yum – but she seems the most real, and besides, she reminds me a lot of Caroline Dhavernas of the lamentably aborted Wonderfalls. She scored the first one-on-one date with Presto, and they went to the Paradise Cove Beach Cafe in Malibu, which is one of my favorites. I take everybody there.

By the way, the house they're playing in looks like a freakin' Bond villain fortress. Some people have way too much money.

Last Comic Standing

This is that one goofy live-in-a-house reality show that finally got me, because it's about something I care about – stand-up comedians. I really enjoyed last season, despite the fact that America – as usual – voted absolutely the wrong way. You can't trust America to vote for anything. American Idol contestants, Friends episodes, presidents. They just screw everything up. Dave Mordal and Rob Cantrell were the funniest people on the show last year, but they didn't win.

This year, what's really weird is that there are a lot more professional comedians joining the fray. Last year, Paul Mecurio (eliminated way early) and Rich Vos (hung in there) were the only ones, and Vos was kind of teased for being a loser pretty much the whole time, and on subsequent Tough Crowd appearances. I would have thought that this time there would be no pros at all, because none of them would want to suffer the indignity that Vos endured – some of these people already have half-hour Comedy Central specials; the prize doesn't seem like it's worth that much to them. But, sure enough, Will Durst, Jim Norton, Bonnie McFarlane – and even Kathleen Madigan – showed up for tryouts. Madigan is one of the old pros! I have no idea why she thinks this is worth it. Sue Costello (unfunny as she is) had a sitcom on Fox, for crying out loud!

I would think that Last Comic Standing would just outright ban the professionals, because it really influences the show quite a bit. With the exception of Durst (who's an acquired taste; I don't usually like him that much), all of the pros have made the final 20. That means four slots that could've gone to regular people. Because no way are the pros going to get bounced out before they get to the house. I mean, you just can't send Jim Norton or Kathleen Madigan packing. Although, the pros will certainly make an enjoyable alliance once they get to the house.

The producers also made the bizarre choice of keeping Ant in the final 20 again this year. He's the ridiculously gay comedian who was accused last year of stealing the bit about boxing being a gay sport because it's two shirtless men in silk shorts fighting over a belt and a purse. He's really, really unfunny. The only value in him trying out for a second time would be watching him get eliminated even earlier this year, and I'm convinced that would have happened if the talent scouts were allowed to hand down the eliminations without consulting with NBC and the producers. Ant's around for dramatic effect, and if he makes it into the house I'm going to lose it. If you wanted to keep one of the lesser talents around for drama, make it the stripper! For God's sake, make it the stripper!

So far, I'm really pulling for Bonnie McFarlane because she thinks that Arksie and I don't find her funny, even though we do. We laughed really hard at her bit about Diane Lane in Unfaithful, "I guess showing your ass at 40 is the new retard," at Borders recently, but she said, "Oh, you're just drunk." We swear, Bonnie. It was a bottle of cream soda! So, in the hopes that she reads this – please forgive us. I'm rooting for you. I'm also cheering for Kerri Louise because she and her husband were both very funny, but she made the cut and not him. I wish theyd' made it together because they were really funny together in interviews. And, I like John Heffron a lot. He did a bit about how people always act out golf swings in casual conversation. In it, he demonstrated sports you don't see people imitating, including bowling (the obvious one) and shot put. The pantomime shot put was hilarious and inspired. Plus, he used the term "Trapper Keeper" in his act. "Trapper Keeper" is like "outfit" and "load-bearing." Comedy gold.

Sue Costello and Ant had better not make it into the house; if they do, they will just be the Dat Phans of this season – the really unfunny ones that are just kept around to irritate everyone else. It's too bad, because there were some pretty talented people who could be advancing instead. One of the black guys from the LA tryouts (I forget his name, but he actually was tall and gregarious, if that helps) did a funny bit about liking white women, and thereby wanting to keep white guys around for breeding purposes. "Sometimes black people get a little carried away and start yelling, 'Kill Whitey!' and I'm always like, 'Hey. Slow down.'" He was good, but he didn't make the cut. The reason I don't like Ant isnt' that he's gay, or even that he's ridiculously, flamingly gay; it's because his act has just one joke. I really don't like when comedians focus all their material on one thing, especially when that thing is the comedian himself. A gay guy doing all gay material or a woman doing all woman material (men think this, men think that, men are dumb) is just boring. There's some funny stuff there, for sure, but you need variety and range. One of the people at the tryouts was missing his left arm below the elbow, and opened with, "I wasn't always a comedian; I used to have this really awesome chainsaw-juggling act." Pretty funny, but you get the feeling he opens every show with it. That's not very good.

Celebrity Poker Showdown

This is the gold standard. Hands-down my favorite reality show ever, although ESPN shows poker, so maybe it's technically a sport. I like Bravo poker better than ESPN poker because it's more like playing with friends. Witty banter, and not everyone knows what they're doing, so it's a more realistic example of how to play. Every table has at least two or three really fun celebrities. This week, it was Norm MacDonald and Michael Ian Black (of The State and Ed), who were very funny and also great poker players. I was delighted to see one of the terrible players (Alex Rodriguez of CSI: Miami) eliminated right up front. He had no idea what he was doing and wasn't a very good conversationalist either, as he quickly proved in the Losers' Lounge.

As a result of the new two-hour format this series, we get a few more backstage interview segments, which means hearing Norm explain how he came to Texas Hold 'Em. "I played the Minnesota Hold 'Em. I won't lie to you, I was pretty good at the Rhode Island Hold 'Em."

The other thing new this series is host Dave Foley. I really liked Kevin Pollak last time around, and although I have been an adoring fan of Foley for years, I was sad to see Pollak go. Foley has really changed the role, though. He's infused a lot more joviality into it, and at times seems to be channeling Steve Martin from one of his Oscar emcee ventures. He makes a lot of the same silly jokes about celebrities. Dave Foley has really converted Celebrity Poker Showdown into my generation's Match Game – a crazy celebrity romp with a game show in the middle of it. Of course, you can't forget about his co-host, poker expert Phil Gordon. Last series, Gordon was so smitten with Shannon Elizabeth that he could barely control himself. This time around, he's still very fun, and I think he's opened up a bit based on Foley's style. He also delivered my favorite line of the show so far, in the series opener: "At this point, Rosario has way the best hand."

It's really enjoyable poker, lots of drama, and plenty of really funny moments between the competitors. Also, Norm MacDonald was sweet enough to plug Dave Foley's 1997 comedy The Wrong Guy, which I have often touted as "the funniest comedy you've never heard of," since discovering it on DVD a year or so ago.

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