My Night of Television Watching

So it turns out that watching television last night (May 20) provided quite the revelation for me. It was kind of a perfect storm of unfortunate events that led me to discover that television can be great again. Upon returning to Houston from California last Thursday my cable reception was having a few issues. And quite naturally, these issues had not resolved themselves by the time that I returned to Houston from St. Louis on Saturday. Consequently, I was exploring channels that I usually would not explore throughout the rest of this past weekend. What made matters worse was that somehow the New York Mets forgot that they were playing a crappy team like the New York Yankees Sunday night and started to suck. (More on this later...) This fact facilitated the ease with which I constantly flipped channels last night.

During my meandering through channels I happened to stop on the VH1. Now, the VH1 is a channel that I may stumble upon once every three weeks to month. It's one of those channels that I know that I have, but would struggle to tell you within ten numbers what number it is. I happened to come upon the current season of Celebrity Fit Club, and my how intriguing this episode was! Now generally, I prefer to hear news about fat pseudo-celebrities losing weight in thirty-second intervals (e.g., the Dan Marino et al. NutriSystem commercials). However, I became transfixed as I watched near the end of the show as Dustin "Screech" Diamond preceded to irritate all of the other "celebrities" until the point that six of the other seven walked off stage (ultimately I did think that this was a gross overreaction by the other cast members as it seemed that they were all forgetting that they were allowing Dustin "Screech" Diamond to humiliate/irritate/get the better of them), seriously argued that he took offense to being labeled a porn star, but was okay with being labeled a pornographer, and nearly signed his own death warrant by possibly challenging US Marine drill instructor to a fight (this part was a bit confusing). Oh good times...

But this only served as a prelude to what I was to experience. While Celebrity Fit Club was on, I happened to flip through channels during a commercial break and stumbled upon what to me now is one of the greatest programs ever: Women of Ninja Warrior. If you have never seen it, then you have certainly missed out. The show comes on the G4 channel (sorry, I'm too lazy to actually search for times when it airs) and involves women trying to complete four stages of an obstacle course in order to attain "total victory." Apparently, this show was spun off from the original male versions called Ninja Warrior, naturally. Oh, did I mention that this show is a Japanese production in which the action is called in dubbed English? (The comedy meter is rising...) Oh, and did I also mention that of the 100 women that begin each competition, fewer than 10% complete the first round of the challenge? (The meter is rising higher...) And that only one woman has ever completed all four stages? (Higher...) And of the 90+ women that lose in round one, probably about 90+% end up falling into the water? (Higher still...) And did I mention that some of the costumes these women wear are absolutely absurd? (I can barely contain myself now...) And would you believe that despite all of what I have told you about the show, it is still probably at least one hundred times better than I've described when you actually watch it? (Comedy gold!) The show is absolutely thrilling because you know that almost invariably the woman is going to end up taking a dive into the water, but you just hang on to see just how creative that dive is going to be this time. This show certainly meets with my seal of approval.

However, this was not the lone show that I watched as the night progressed. I ended up turning back to the VH1 and somehow got stuck watching Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School. Now many are certainly aware that I hate reality shows. For the most part, they are not entertaining in the slightest. This show is different because you bring together a bunch of superficial girls who all absolutely hate one another, competing for a chance to win $50,000, will do any amount of backstabbing to try to win, and the judges of the show appear to be at best completely detached from the realities occurring on the show, and at worst completely incompetent. This all makes for some brilliant television. Okay, brilliant is certainly too strong for what appears on this show as I'm certain that this adjective has rarely been used to describe any of the show's participants. But can you imagine a show that has more comedy potential than one in which the contestants are tasked with selling as many of their clothes as possible to a thrift shop but one is essentially unable to sell anything since she is a stripper and the only clothes that she has brought with her are stripper clothes? Oh, and did I mention that all of these girls absolutely hate one another?