The Omnigeek

Okay, my wife likes reality TV and I respect that. With there being less and less hockey on to watch as the season winds down and a complete lack of creativity from the writers there are fewer and fewer non-reality choices to choose from.

Normally, I surf the interwebs while casually paying attention to the TV. I can count the shows I care about on one hand (and maybe a toe or two) and even then, I try to take it in and cruise the other “tubes”.

Shows that Matter to me!

• Big Bang Theory
• Criminal Minds
• Numb3rs
• Hockey of any kind
• NASCAR Sprint Cup and IndyCar Races
• The Mentalist
• Nurse Jackie — could be interesting, willing to give it a chance.

This week, NBC started airing a new TV series called “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here”. It’s a Survivor meets Big Brother meets Fear Factor show where “D List” celebrities get dropped in the jungle of Costa Rica, do stupid, gross stuff in teams and one of the losers gets voted off by the viewers all in the name of charity.

Fail point 1. I’m not sure you could call all these celebs even “D List”. Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s wife, Patti? Though I have to admit, she’s actually one of the better people on the show!

NBC and its lack of any real TV is running four episodes this week, Monday thru Thursday. Come on NBC your “Inside the West Wing” news program last night was excellent, “I’m a Celebrity” not so much. Thru three episodes, no one has been voted off. Of course two people “left” the show (multiple times) and NBC replaced them with another person and the two quitters are trying to come back so they are getting more people than they are kicking off. Oh, thats Fail point 2.

Fail point 3 has to do with the two quitter celeb’s from “The Hills”, another stupid reality show. Spencer and Heidi Pratt quit, left the show. The others split up their stuff. They came back and a screaming match that would outpace The Apprentice” kicked up. Does NBC operate like the Apprentice’s Boardroom with people screaming at each other until stupid decisions come out? Reality check — thats not the way the real world works. At this point, the cast has voted against allowing the couple to come back after they have quit several times, but highlights indicate they are coming back.

These two characters are pure turn-offs. I’m not sure how someone like Spencer Pratt ever got to a point where he got a TV show on the air. I’m personally thankful that I’ve never waisted a single brain-cell on “The Hills”.

Fail point 4 is the Baldwins. NBC has something good with Alec Baldwin. Between some of the best Saturday Night Live hosting skits and 30 Rock, Alec is doing well for himself and doing well for NBC. But come one how many celeb reality TV shows can brother Steven Baldwin possibly be on? Someone in Hollywood give him some real work already. To that, brother Daniel is the “New” cast member, clearly to push Steven’s buttons.

Fail point 5: Eating gross Stuff. The show is on at 8pm in the Eastern and Mountain time zones which means 7pm in the Central and Pacific time zones. Thats dinner time for most people. We don’t need to see people eating disgusting body parts from gross animals. Folks, this is NOT entertaining.

Fail point 6. Sticking body parts into boxes with creepy animals in it. Okay, this is a game we all played as kids at our Halloween parties. You build a box, call it “Brains” and put in Jello and challenge your friends to stick their hand in the box. We’ve seen shows like Fear Factor do this, lay in a box while we pour hundreds of snakes on you….. Well last nights episode went to a new level. Lou Diamond Phillips (one of the actual celebs on the show) who has a reoccurring roll on “Numb3rs” had to stick his hand into a hole full of rats in an attempt to unscrew a “star” shaped nut from a bolt.

Okay, putting your hands in to an aquarium bowl of fish to do this, or a wad of dirt and earthworms is one thing. Okay maybe even a box with a couple of venom drained tarantulas is another. But for Phillips, the rats were hungry and he was food. Despite having his hand ravaged by dozens of bites, he hung in there until he got the prize. The person he was going up against, Torrie Wilson, a former WWE wrestler, pulled her hand out after one bite. Phillips determination earned him a trip to the set doctor (who we actually got to see) getting cleaned and stitched up from the dozens of bites. Did NBC really need to go there?

Fail point 7. The show is based on a British TV series by the same name. One of the hosts is the winner of the British version. She’s very attractive, but you can’t understand her. Her accent is too thick. Maybe I shouldn’t go there, but can we stop importing their garbage shows? American Idol was a winner, but please enough is enough. Why can’t we create garbage shows to export to other countries?

I’ve been informed we will be watching this while trying to watch Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

Usually we flip away during the gross parts only to land on some other reality TV series. One night we were flipping between “I’m a Celebrity” and the Bachelorette. Sadly, “I’m a Celebrity” makes “The Bachelorette” look like rocket science. Could this be part of NBC’s grand plan? To lower the intelligence of their shows in an attempt to make their other shows look better?

Gag me with a “Reality Show”!