Toob Talk

Just a quick reminder that Dr. Horrible’s Sing A Long Blog “opens” in a handful of hours.

Am I still excited? Yes I am.

Of course, I won’t be watching it until I’m home from work Tuesday night, so I’m expecting to be scooped on everything.

But I’m still going to enjoy it. No matter what! (Unless, by some terrible catastrophe it sucks, in which case I will happily rip Joss a new one.)

Tonight, NBC premiers it’s new “reality” show, Celebrity Circus.

I, of course, won’t be watching it. (I’ll be watching a much more worthwhile “reality” show, Ghosthunters.)

Here’s the thing about what I’ve seen of this show just from the previews–I’ve already seen a better version of this a decade or three ago. It was called Circus of the Stars and it was an annual one shot that showcased the (often impressive) results of a lot of hard work by then-current celebrities.

Celebrity Circus, on the other hand, is an ongoing show that has the ever-popular (and often degrading) competition aspect added in. Viewers are encouraged to tune in not to see the “celebrities” (and I use that term loosely) succeed, but to watch the spectacular (and inevitable) failures. I’m guessing people will be voted off every week. I’m guessing there will be backstabbing, or at least implied backstabbing, as that gets people to talk about and watch the show.

No, I won’t be watching it because I hate what reality shows push on us. They create z-list faux-celebrities who get better known the more they screw up or screw over others. Our society is bad enough without actually encouraging, idolizing and rewarding behavior like that.

So you go and watch the first episode of Celebrity Circus. I’ll be here remembering the good old days when real celebrities like Lauren Bacall and Sammy Davis, Jr. showed up on TV to prove they were more than just pretty faces.

Since it first aired, I’ve been a fan of Beauty and the Geek.

I thought the concept was fantastic and the execution infinitely better than most “reality” shows. The contestants grew and learned. The show wasn’t as much about competition as it was about becoming a better person–the prize money was just an extra added bonus.

The current iteration of the show, though, has undone almost all of the respect I had for the show runners.

As of the last episode, it became nothing more than a hollow vehicle for cross-promotion and yet another place to make people feel awkward for no reason other than entertainment value. It has been trending that way all season, but now it has just gone too far. (more…)

Even before it hit the air, Kid Nation gained the title of most controversial new show.

For those who’ve missed the promo stuff for this new reality show, they’ve taken 40 kids from all different age and social groups and sent them to a pioneer-era ghost town. They have supplies, an appointed council and a lot of leeway in the direction things take over the course of 40 days. The pre-broadcast controversy came up when word got out that, at one point during the filming, a couple of the kids accidentally drank some (very diluted) bleach. That, of course, is really a non-issue as the kids are surrounded by camera people and the medical staff is instantly on call for anything.

Watching the first episode, I was worried for a little bit that things would be Survivor-flavored: where teams compete against one another and then decide who gets sent home. Thankfully, that’s not the case with Kid Nation. Yes, there is a team-based competition, but (at least so far) no one is sent home. They are, however, given the option to go home once a week.

What the show is about is team work, leadership and plain old hard work. Three things that so many kids these days seem to know even less about than I did when I was their age. Their ages run from 8 to 14 years old. Because of that span, there are some very deep challenges to overcome in the division of labor and social skills.

In charge of the group are four appointed town council members, themselves kids. Why they were appointed isn’t mentioned in the episode. I’m betting that somewhere around week three or four there’s going to be an election. They are, after all, setting up a town and politics most certainly is part of that.

Law enforcement is also a part of learning about civic government. There’s already been a spurt of graffiti, perpetrated by two of the older boys in the group. Nothing was done about that, but it does seem that a number of the kids aren’t too happy about it.

An all out crime wave, though, will probably not happen any time soon because of another great thing the producers have seen fit to do. Every week the town council will choose one kid who has worked hardest or best and award them a gold star. That would be a real gold star–worth $20,000. Plus a phone call home.

Having seen just one episode, I’m pretty impressed. While I’d be more likely to produce a show that did the same thing with just teenagers, I fully admire the chutzpa of the producers of filling the ranks with the mix of age groups that they did. That mix may end up making the show even more impressive, heart warming and valid in the long run.

Along with Beauty and the Geek and 2005’s Brat Camp, I think we have another very worthwhile reality show on our hands. This is a show families should watch together. There’s a lot to be learned.

The new season of Beauty and the Geek has hit the CW.

Anyone who knows me, knows that this is one of the few reality shows that I actually think is worth watching. It’s one of the few that doesn’t encourage every-man-for-himself backstabbing. The show is actually about personal development and learning about others.

You can pick out those shows. They’re the ones where the people who leave aren’t upset because they’re not going to get to split that quarter-million dollar prize, but because they’re actually going to miss the people they’ve been living with.

The previous three seasons of the show have never failed to hit close to home for me. Looking at the geeks in the show (infinitely better representations of that particular species than what you’ll find in shows like Chuck), I see a lot of myself–especially a lot of my younger self. And I look at the beauties and I see so many people I’ve had crushes on over the years.

By the end of a season, we see both the beauties and the geeks grow. The geeks become more socially sure of themselves, more aware of the world around them. The beauties discover a different kind of self-confidence–one based not on their outer appearance, but on their actual capabilities (reminding me, of course, of so many of the beautiful and intelligent women I know now).

The key to the show is putting people in a position where they learn just how true it is that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Even more importantly, they learn to better read themselves and those around them, helping them to understand the richer story each has.

Out here in the real world, we have no producers or $250,000 prize to encourage us to do that. No camera crew helping the world watch us, no chance to obtain instant fame or infamy. Here in the real world, it’s up to us to put ourselves in those situations. We have to take the time to look beyond the covers of those around us.

Most importantly, we have to learn to look beyond our own cover and learn how to find the Pulitzer Prize winning material in our own pages.

Luckily, for the next handful of weeks, you’ll be able to watch other people do that. There’s even a bit of an inclusive twist this season as they’ve added a male beauty and a female geek (a first for the show). Maybe you can pick up some tips on how to do it on your own.

Entourage
So I’ve “discovered” this new show on HBO called Entourage. OK, so I’m a season and a half late getting on the bandwagon with this one–I was without my own TV when it premiered last year. The show follows the struggle of a new actor and his friends trying ot make it big in Hollywood. The main cast is great, their chemistry and delivery is more convincing than what you get in many dramas, let along half-hour comedies and the writers on the show really know how to keep all of them up to something. Even though I’ve only seen two episodes, I’m seriously considering picking up the first season on DVD, just so I can catch up. But the really good thing is, unlike HBO’s hour-long dramas, the episodes of this show seem to stand alone just fine (much like Sex in the City did, but not quite as much as Arliss did). There’s more there if you’ve seen everything that’s come before, but if you just catch one every now and then, there’s still enough meat to chew on.

Beauty and the Geek
My favorite new reality show, Beauty and the Geek, ended last week. This week they had a wrap-up/reunion show. Even though the regular run of the show had a good feel to it, this reunion managed to feel really stunted and fake for most of the hour. What it did manage to do was let us see how the beauties and geeks react in front of a live audience. Something they didn’t have to deal with while filming the show. If nothing else, it made it very, very clear that some people don’t take well to a real spotlight… and others, well, others seem born to be on the screen (no matter how annoying they may be).

This show really does hold a special place in my heart. Being a certified “geek” and having been lucky enough to spend a lot of time around “beauties” it was very interesting to see the social dynamics and personal growth play out honestly on a TV show. Unfortunately, I doubt the second season will be anywhere near as good. It never is once people know what they’re in for.

The Inside
I know the show’s as good as dead right now, but I’m still watching it while I can (well, before I get the DVD set). While they haven’t exploited the wonderful ensemble cast they have quite as much as I’d have liked, they have been doing good stories and really digging into the psychology of their main three characters.

I think they may have jumped the gun on the plot of the last episode. It’s something I would have saved for a season finale and then drawn out with a bit more mystery for half of the second season. But, taking into account there won’t be a second season, I’m glad they did it now. It will be very interesting to see how much commentary is on the DVD release, I’d love to hear what the creators were thinking.

Something new tonight…
And now, I’m going to watch the first episode of yet another reality show. This one’s called Hooking Up and follows 11 women through their online dating experiences. It should be… ummm… interesting? Maybe I shouldn’t be watching this while still considering the possibility of beginning to date again…

Last night, while I was watching the wrap up of Beauty and the Geek (on the WB) and the latest episode of The Inside (on Fox), I recorded the new reality show Brat Camp on ABC. I just watched it today after work.

Now, let me start by pointing out that Brat Camp isn’t one of the normal “throw a bunch of people somewhere and offer them a prize” reality shows. This is a real reality show. No one gets voted off the island. There’s no cash prize at the end. Trivia challenges don’t come up at all.

It follows a group of nine troubled teens as they take part in a wilderness-based therapy program.

When I say “troubled teens” I mean it. There’s kids here that remind me a great deal of people I grew up with. Drinking and drugging starting at age 12, violent, lying, rude and out of control. The youngest is 14 (Nick, who decided he wasn’t going to take his ADHD medication any more and went from an A student to failing–perhaps the strangest reason any of the kids are at the camp) and the oldest are 17. These are kids with real problems, and they’re not ashamed of them at all.

SageWalk is the name of the program and it specializes in teaching kids like these about discipline, self-respect, honesty and hard work. All the work, therapy included, is done outside. Oh yeah, the camp is located in the “wilds of Oregon” and “class” starts in mid-November. Test your weather IQ and think about what that means for a program that lasts up to 90 days.

The first episode was a two-hour introduction to the kids, counselors and ideas behind the program. It basically runs like this: Counselors with very Hippy-sounding “Earth Names” (like Little Big Bear and Glacier Mountain Wolf?) head out into the scrub with the nine teens, most of whom were tricked into showing up at the program by fed up, scared parents. They have nothing of their old lives with them–all personal belongings are left back at the main SageWalk offices–and each has a 40-pound backpack that carries everything they need. The base camp consists of a fire ring, a tepee (where all the kids sleep) and not a whole heck of a lot else. To call it “Spartan” would make it sound too luxurious. Through the course of the program, the teens will hike, climb, learn about wilderness survival and face their inner demons. All with the help of the seasoned trail guides (who are out there with the kids 24/7) and professional counselors (who are brought out twice a week).

While the title of the show makes it sound a little crass and cutesy, the reality of this show is anything but. It is honest, showing both the fear and pain of the parents and of the kids, and it is real.

Personally, I’ve found it very interesting so far. But maybe that’s because of my own background and preferences.

I did a lot of learning in the woods. Not just growing up in a little, rural, tree-filled town, but in the actual woods. Camping, hiking–things not unlike what these kids are being put through. Biggest difference is, I did all of it willingly. But I think I can safely say a good reason I never ended up like these kids is because of the things I learned from nature.

Nothing will teach you more about yourself and other people than spending a few days in the wilderness. Real wilderness.

The fact that there are so many people around who’ve never spent a weekend in a tent and sleeping bag just boggles my mind. I can’t imagine a totally urban life-style. When I was in college, one of the programs my community service group did involved bringing a bunch of city kids out to a camp to learn about business with the local Rotary club. Some of those kids had trouble dealing the “cabin camping”, so I can’t imagine what they’d do if put in the situation the kids in Brat Camp are in.

It’s bound to be an interesting few weeks, watching these kids grow and conquer their problems. And I think a lot of people–kids and parents–can benefit from watching it.