Indulging My Inner Bastard
February 24, 2005

-- I've never been a reality TV kind of guy. I haven't watched a single episode of Survivor, don't know a thing about The Apprentice, and couldn't give two good ass droplets about The Bachelor. I fully admit that I don't know what I'm talking about when I say this, since I have no actual knowledge of the shows in question, but I think I'd rather plunge my arm down a garbage disposal.

Generally speaking, I watch movies, the various Law & Orders, and Lost. And that's about it. We did watch Trading Spaces for a year or so, but it made me so anxious I had to stop; I thought it was starting to affect my health. So, I have no measurable experience with the phenomenon that is reality television, and I couldn't be more proud.

Somehow though, despite our instincts and prejudices, we occasionally find ourselves sucked into the festival of retardation known as Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, over on ABC. It's because it comes on right after America's Funniest Home Videos (still the funniest show on TV), and considerable energy is required to lift the remote and push all those buttons to go somewhere else; so many buttons.

I've watched maybe three or four episodes because of this, and every one has left me shaking my head in amazement. I simply cannot believe what is happening on the screen before me.

In case you've never seen it, one of the carpenters from Trading Spaces supposedly (ha!) watches a bunch of videos sent in by "average" Americans, in which the hapless and/or diseased beg for free interior decorating. He agonizes and finally chooses the family he feels is most deserving, has a meeting with his team of over-caffeinated homosexuals and Australians, and they eventually converge on the house, hollering through bull-horns and pumping their fists in the air.

Since ABC is owned by Disney, the "deserving" family is always jettisoned to Disneyland or Disney World, the minute their sob story is out of the way. In every episode I've watched, with the exception of last Sunday's, I think, a member of the family has suffered from some strange novelty-disease. It's never cancer or emphysema, or anything like that. No, that would be bad for business. It's always an obscure affliction that causes people to shed their skin like a snake, or a severe oxygen allergy, or something along those lines. They then remodel the house while the family is away... with the disease in mind.

...I'm sorry. I'm getting a little emotional here.

Breaking slightly from the formula, this week's show had no boy in a plastic bubble, or a child required to live his entire life inside a cedar trunk. It was about a family in the suburbs of Atlanta, whose house fills up with turds whenever it rains. You think that's a joke? Yeah, I know it sounds like one (and a good one, at that), but it's not. These folks reportedly had a significant problem with their septic tank that caused human waste to come shooting out of the air conditioner vents, and oozing up between the floorboards during rainstorms. Apparently they didn't have home owner's insurance, or the means to correct the problem, because they lived there, in the house that dripped feces, for years.

Enter the team of over-caffeinated homosexuals and Australians. They surprised the family by showing up at their front door unannounced, in a Shania Twain tour bus. They came pouring from the outsized vehicle screaming into amplification devices, doing rebel yells, and waving their hands in the air. And the family responded by sprinting onto the lawn, twitching, bending at the waist, and turning in circles. The father, a Leon Spinks lookalike in a ludicrous ski sweater, began speaking in tongues and sobbing uncontrollably. And I'm almost certain I saw one of the kids in the background just suddenly burst into flames, because of the excitement. I guess they put him out in time?

The bulk of the show is taken up by scenes of demolition and construction, and a far too stimulated crew hooting and hollering every time another wall comes down. And there's always an emotional moment in the middle of the show, just when it looks like they're going to run out of time, when a giant army of local construction workers show up in matching hard hats, pledging to donate their time to the cause. I hate to be cynical, but I always wonder why it takes a network TV crew to mobilize these armies of do-gooders? Where were they last year, for instance, when these poor people were knee-deep in their own shitballs? Hmm?

And, of course, they always have a myriad of little mini-disasters, and interviews with the highly-stressed decorators and landscapers along the way. One regular member of the crew seems to be in a constant state of strife. He's sort of a cross between Jim J. Bullock and Senator John Edwards after a six-month deep-tanning regimen. He's constantly wringing his hands, and making otherwise rational Americans scream at their TVs: oh, just shut the hell up, bitch! I can't really put my finger on why, but the guy gives me the creeps, and I'm always pulling for him to fail. Or, at the very least, for a socket wrench to fall off the second floor and... not kill him, that would be mean, but maybe bounce off one of his shoulders, or something.

Sunday's show had a great bonus scene when a man in a lab coat apparently emerged from the woods across the street, and announced that his name was Dr. Germ. He had a pocketful of test tubes, and had been sent by the carpenter from Trading Spaces to test the standing "water" in the basement, for diseases and whatnot. I found this to be hysterical. The entire crew stood around, hushed and biting their fingernails, as this so-called doctor ran his tests. It was the lab coat that did it for me. What an excellent douche he was.

The team, of course, managed to get the house done, against great odds. (Whew!) They constructed a big-ass 5300 square foot(!) mansion for the family, and it was tricked out with all the bells and whistles. I mean, the shit was nice. And, as usual, they seized upon little things the kids had said, and turned their bedrooms into monuments to their interests. The youngest boy told somebody early-on that he wanted to be a cardiologist (a common dream of nine year olds everywhere), so they gave his room a heart theme -- complete with a nightmare-generating cabinet that I believe incorporated human flesh and hydraulic pulse. Oh, they're big on the theme rooms on that show... A person could say they like peanut butter and jelly, just in passing, return from Disneyland and find that their bed is now a four-poster sandwich.

But the family seemed pretty pleased with their new digs, and rightly so. It's a friggin' estate, after all. The mother, especially, was excited with the prospect of being able to take a "baff" in her new sunken tub. Dad spent the last fifteen minutes crying into his giant sweater, and the kids were walking around in a state of disbelief. There was a lot of hugging, shaking, running in place, and making sounds like a British ambulance. All understandable, I say. I mean, when they left town their house was a literal shitbox, and now they're living in a place Hammer might find to be a bit much. I think I'd be making some ambulance sounds too.

My inner-cynical bastard wouldn't mind seeing some follow-ups on these stories, though. I'd like to revisit this family, as well as the five obese sisters from a few weeks back, in, say, a year? I have a feeling that some of their old problems will have returned -- just a hunch on my part. Somebody should do an independent documentary, with no ties to Disney or anyone, where they go back and check on last year's winners. Now that's some reality television I wouldn't mind watching.

Yeah, I'd do it myself, but I have my own set of problems... Wonder if Dr. Germ is hiring? Wonder if he needs any help down there at the "lab"? Just wonderin'.
                     

                                    
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