Reality??: November 2005 Archives

Another night, another Wife Swap. These shows fascinate me, probably for all they illuminate about what is NOT wrong with my life. It is hard to walk away from watching one of these shows and not feel like you and your friends are the most organized, fair, easy-going, non-judgmental people ever. Because honestly? Where do they get these families?

Let’s just take last night’s show, for instance. They make it seem like it’s a quaint set-up: vegan family’s wife swaps with big hunting family’s wife = ensuing hilarity. The actual formula for the show is a little more like: crazy family’s wife [with defining characteristic] swaps with crazy family’s wife [with opposite defining characteristic] = ensuing hilarity. It doesn’t matter what the defining characteristic is as long as someone in the family, preferably the swapping one, is a few noodles short of a happy bowl.

Let’s meet mom #1, Jackie:

She is a raw foodist and is married to Kip from Napoleon Dynamite. She is very concerned about animals and the earth’s well-being and partakes in “sun-gazing,” which is essentially staring at the sun for 10 minutes a day with the thought that you can derive energy from the sun instead of food and thus deplete the earth’s resources less. This would work a lot better if she were equipped to, oh say, photosynthesize instead of digest. It also might help if humans didn’t have eyeballs that go blind when you stare at a burning sun. On Jackie’s daily to-do list: campaign for PETA, do yoga, meditate, nude sunbathe. She makes dinner for her daughter and her and waits for Kip to come home from his FIFTEEN HOUR shift at work. Though she is intent on the care for animals, she doesn’t seem too concerned about the care for Kip, who prepares his own dinner and cleans the house.

Mom #2, Bobbie

Dude, they live in a half trailer, half house. A “trouse.” They made that word up. They are big hunters, but this fact disturbs me WAY LESS than the fact that they have confederate flags draped all over their, er, trouse. A fact that the producers and editors decide to ignore. Who cares about racism when you can focus on hunting! Bobbie’s kids eat Corn Pops with a pound of sugar poured on top, and various animals. She alludes to the fact that they don’t have enough money to buy food for the family and that hunting is actually the way they feed their family. They can, however, afford horses.

After the introductions, it’s mostly a battle of Who is Most Crazy. As a vegetarian, I am always hoping that they will someday cast a sensible, respectful non-meat-eater in the roll of Less Crazy. But for some reason it is much more fun to play with gross stereotypes and Jackie goes down like a lead balloon. Yes, Bobbie tries to make Kip and Daughter eat meat and throw away their PETA posters, but this is only after she actually did the one-woman protest herself and handed out fliers to passerbyers, which is at least a big of breach of personal ethics. Jackie on the other hand, plays a graphic PETA video (while weeping) to the boys and forces them to eat handfuls of raw hemp seeds for breakfast and join her in picketing. She tries to make them stare at the sun, too, but it snows.

And unfortunately, Jackie’s unrelenting fanaticism backfires and causes Bobbie to grow very concerned that their hunting way of life is truly threatened, and she vows to hunt more now than ever before. Kip’s manhood feels rejuvenated and he finally puts his foot down and introduces cooked foods back into their lives. He celebrates his victory with two pieces of toast.

I can’t help but think this would be a fun show to be on. Hmm. Liz’s day: wake up, sit at desk for 8 hours, come home, make or get dinner, watch reality shows, go to bed. I may have to work a few more “kill dinner with bare hands” or “emasculate husband” tasks in there.

I’m not much for message boards, probably because avoiding them gives me some small strand of hope that I’m not entirely gone to the rest of the world when in comes to Lost. I am not, however, above having other people tell me things they’ve read on message boards and then relaying those things to you. This helps maintain an illusion of personal involvement I suppose. Blah blah blah ANYWAY! My sources tell me that they played what Walt said to Shannon backwards and got this: “They're coming, and they're close.”

Did you just get shivers up your spine, because I sure the fuck did. How is he appearing and disappearing? Why is he talking backwards? Why is he posed the exact same way each time she sees him, and each time it’s in the rain? Is he projecting himself somehow from a scientists’ lair? We also know the island is playing some other tricks that were never quite explained, like Jack’s dead dad wandering around. Could the image sightings be related?

I’m roaming into major SPOILER ALERT territory if you haven’t seen the newest episode yet, so, uh, you’ve been warned. (But seriously, get caught up before next week, okay? I can’t promise I won’t answer my phone with “Jack died!” instead of “Hello?” or something. Jack didn’t die [in fact, is this the first show where we don’t even see Jack?]. Although we learn on the bonus features disc from the first season DVD collection that the writers’ original intent was to kill Jack off right away. But when they tested that on audiences, everyone got very angry, so they changed it to the pilot getting killed instead.) You’d think I would have guessed that it was going to be Shannon who was shot because, oh, IT WAS HER EPISODE, but for some reason my mind completely filtered that right out and I was surprised at the end anyway. But I wasn’t surprised it was new bitch lady that was wielding the gun. Two points for me.

Prior to that, we got to see Sayid giving Shannon a little candlelit bungalow on the beach at night. Is it just me, or would you ladies have been all, “Aw, sweet,” but then be thinking a little, “Hmm, he does realize that he already did this two episodes ago or so, right? I really hope this isn’t the only trick up his sleeve because the ‘Surprise, here’s a tent I built!’ thing is going to get old quick.” Also, dude may be sweet, but he is not slick. He said, “It’s all for you,” but we all know he meant, “It’s all for you…and me to get busy in!” Not to mention the last time she spent a romantic evening alone with him happened to be the same night her brother/lover (brover?) was killed. NO BAD ASSOCIATIONS THERE OR ANYTHING. Also, what do you think the chances are for safe sex? You’d think the fear of becoming pregnant on a monster island that steals babies might kill your sex drive, but apparently not so much.

Also, in case you missed it, Jack is the doctor who couldn’t save Shannon’s dad. Remember why? Because he saved his future wife instead.

Good lord, is it next Wednesday yet?

Hello there. I'm Liz and I'm excited to be joining the ranks and entering into the communal obsession with television here at Warm Glow. You have actually caught me at a meaningful threshold in my television-viewing life. Over the past few weeks my husband, J, and I have watched season one of Lost, with a fanaticism that falls only a little short of batshit crazy obsession. We then downloaded the five episodes that have aired thus far in season two and watched those, consecutively, in one sitting. We are officially Caught Up. And according to my sources, this is a particularly good week to be caught up, as the new episode airing on Wednesday is rumored to only be slightly less exciting than, say, winning 156 million dollars in the lottery. Someone is supposed to die, and even though they are playing it up like it will be Sawyer, my money’s on the bossy new lady who Jack had a drink with or the random blond lady who befriended Michael. Am I just in denial?? Kate did have that whole "I never said goodbye" thing going on. And they did just sorta kill Boone without any warning.

Anyway, I have been shielding my ears from all Lost references for the past year so that I might not overhear a spoiler, but now all is fair game. After Wednesday, I will have officially watched my first episode along with the rest of the world and am free to speculate openly and listen to rumors about mad scientist kidnappers. And sharks with logos.

(image via tvsquad)

I KNOW!

Since Lost airs on Wednesday, I have fired Martha Stewart’s Apprentice from the lineup (and if we’re being honest, there was really only ever room for one Apprentice in my heart). Also no longer in contention for viewing is Trading Spouses, which, while not one of my regulars, I do watch on occasion for its share of comic gold in the form of human misery and stupidity. This week’s teaser has been this woman stampeding around screaming, “THEY DON’T BELIEVE IN GOD!!! HER CHILDREN DON’T EVEN GO TO CHURCH!”

(screen capture via fourfour)

Can you even believe you aren’t watching it THIS SECOND?

Luckily, ANTM comes on just before Lost, so none of the model-watching will be interrupted. This is very important because we are only episodes away from the producers letting down their guards and letting us see the full crazy of Jayla, who may be the only reality show contestant in the history of TV to usurp the role of “The Whacked Out Crazy Bitch” during a freakin’ recap clip show. In addition to being a Jehovah’s Witness from Arizona, Jayla is also a Gelfling.

Anyway, I’m very much looking forward to sharing my television blather with you. After all, what good is being obsessed with reality shows and mystery islands if there’s no one there to talk to you about them?