Summer Reality

I committed to blogging Hit Me Baby One More Time, but I wish I had waited to actually see the new batch of reality shows. Surprisingly, Dancing With The Stars is more fun. I had to tune in after reading an article in the Wall Street Journal that noted that the head of programming at ABC (a Stanford MBA) resisted pitches for this British remake (yes, British producers are the rulers of goofy reality TV shows) until she gave in and was hooked after 10 minutes. Since I'm obsessed with boy bands it's no surprise that my favorite from week one was Joey McIntyre of NKOTB (also he was the most reminiscent of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.) But the popular favorite seems to be boxer Evander Holyfield. He was great fun to watch. The worst was Kelly Monaco who came across as incapable of more than one facial expression and one emotion as she is on General Hospital. She was savaged by the judges and will probably get booted this week. And may I just say, Trista Sutter of Bachelorette fame (but she's hoping this show will cause people to think of her as a dancer rather than as just the Bachelorette - hmmm, going on a reality show to make people forget that you starred in 2 reality series and one ridiculous, over-the-top, very pink, multi-million dollar televised wedding) did an amazing job of maintaining her permagrin at all times.

Buzz on the Ashston Kucher's Beauty and the Geek and Hell's Kitchen is good. I'm checking out The Scholar tonight.* But the best news for the summer is that realistic non-reality show Six Feet Under is back tonight. My friend Gary Calamar does the music. But I'd love it anyway.

*Caught The Scholar - kind of strange. Brought to you by Bunim-Murray, the Real World folks. When they are competing it's a bit annoying because they're in high school but they're smarter than you. It's no fun if you can't make fun of them. Then when they're not competing and studying in the dorm - well, they're in high school. And they act like it. The Real World cast with HS students would be of interest perhaps only to other HS kids, and even then, maybe not because these are the 4.6 GPA havin' nerds - not likely the super cool popular kids - and we all remember just how desperately important all that was in HS. There were flashes when I really dug it - as a super nerd myself I could appreciate some of the neuroses. We'll see - it's certainly not feel good on the level of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition but I might warm up to it a bit.