Is There Anything Good on TV Anymore?

I never cease to be amazed by the lack of quality shows on television. If I'm not mistaken, 99% of programs between 6 and 10 p.m. are 'reality' shows, and the majority of these are ridiculous, far-fetched, scripted, or a spin-off of another show. Basically, they're anything but 'reality.'

Now remember, I'm the guy who, as a 24 year old, married college graduate, still watches the Real World, and it's spin-off step-brother, Real World/Road Rules Challenge shows religiously, but even I have to admit, things have gone too far. It's sad when a fantastic show like Friday Night Lights has to sweat it out every season, worrying that it will get cancelled due to low ratings, yet shows that are quite literally an embarrassment to humanity (The Flavor of Love, Rock of Love, I Love New York, and Shot at Love series's*, Surreal Life, etc) get brought back for multiple seasons.

As terrible as many of these shows are, I figured I had seen the worst of it with the aforementioned trash on Vh1. However, last night I saw a preview for what may go down in history as the most embarrassing show featuring B and C-list celebrities ever to be produced. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you...Celebrity Circus!

Regardless of how bad this show will be (and it will be bad), the title pretty much sums up the culture in which we live, where anyone can be a celebrity and no matter how irrelevant you are as a 'celebrity,' you can claim another fifteen minutes or so by subjecting yourself to skating or dancing with a professional, living in a home with other quasi-celebs, filming your drug rehab, singing or dancing when you're terrible at both, or a myriad other things, just to get on TV and collect a paycheck one more time.**

For a great example of how out of control our culture is with reality TV, check the left column of the Celeb Circus link. I mean, wow. I realize that most of the shows listed have been cancelled, but good grief, those are a ton of reality programs.

-Twig

*Each of these shows center around B-list celebs (Flavor Flav, Brett Michaels, Tila Tequila, and "New York," a reject from the Flavor of Love series) trying to find their "true love," Bachelor style. Each show as been through at least two seasons, because-shockingly-the first time around, their true love didn't turn out to be the real thing.

**That paragraph just won the "Sentence that was so long, it became it's own paragraph. Sorta like how Australia is a continent and a country" award.