In 2008, reality television further sank its teeth into popular culture with help from the writer’s strike and the current economic crisis. With production on scripted shows shutting down late last year, TV programmers rushed to the safe, cheap and non-union arms of reality shows to fill the void until the stoppage ended in late February. Viacom may be the most high-profile example, as they ordered up and plugged in an extra season of “competitive reality” series Big Brother onto CBS. And as a self-inflicted labor war crippled TV programming early in the year, the pernicious tentacles of the worldwide economic crisis seemed to make the media conglomerates rely even more on reality TV towards the end of the year. Case in point: VH1 and MTV now broadcast reality programming almost 24/7.

If that’s the trend when it comes to the genre’s distribution and penetration, the trend regarding content may be summed up in one word: crudity. With the inundation of reality shows on our TV’s is the need to differentiate a show from the din, and the way it was done this year is to show the contestants swearing at each other (usually women) and/or hitting each other (always women). Reality television has always been perceived, somewhat unfairly, as boorish and violent. But the outright glorification of physical violence in shows this year has sunk the genre to a new level or low, depending on how fond you are about these half-hour “catfights.”

Without further ado -- and, yes, maybe very little fanfare -- here it is, the 2008 Reality Television Awards. Mighty Big TV and now TWoP have indulged me for years now (fingers crossed), and I thank them yet again for allowing me to carve out this small thread and bring you the worst and best of reality TV. Over the next few weeks (hopefully) I’ll be posting my “awards” and selfishly giving my thoughts on the year for the genre. But please, I’d like everyone to join in and either comment (praise or trash, whatever) my “awards” and give some of your own. So if you have an opinion about the year in reality (I usually restrict my RTA’s to Competitive Reality because that’s the subgenre I prefer, but go ahead and talk about any reality), please, let loose and speak your mind. There’s a hell of a lot to bitch about. For me, I can’t get over VH1. So I’ll start there with:

Special RTA For A Network’s Comprehensive Surrender To Bottom-Of-The-Barrel Unscripted Programming: VH1, for virtually every single show they show

From its inception in 1985, VH1 has been a cable channel in search of a reason to be. It was supposed to be MTV for slightly older people, more 10,000 Maniacs than New Kids On The Block. Fighting declining ratings, it started to wean away from showing music videos and introduced music-based programs and specials. But when that didn’t add viewers, they followed sister channel MTV and gave itself totally to pop-culture shows and, eventually, reality.

And the channel has not been coy about racing to the bottom of a Marianas Trench and making shows featuring egotistical leads and the ill-tempered, foul-mouthed, drink-throwing psycho-fants willing to do anything for a little kissy-kissy time. The Of Love series – virtually the entire block of VH1’s reality programming – have quickly devolved (if they ever evolved) into a series of contestants swearing and spraying alcohol at each other to prove their love towards the “prize,” then melting into a bubble of incomprehension as they try to explain to Flavor Flav/Bret Michaels/New York/Real/Chance that their bond between them is, you know, real.

Incomprehension seems to be the theme that unifies these shows; it seems like every show has the same bitch-fights and emotional outbursts and call-out orders, and yet you can’t seem to keep track of who did what and who was right in this fight or why did he cut her and keep her. Or the theme could be not being “real” – whenever, for example, there’s another edition of the show because a relationship with the previous season’s winner just “didn’t work out.” Which is every single time. For turning every one of your shows into a grimy, violent, bleep-filled mess and yet make them all so stultifying, so predictable, so boring that they are interchangeable, VH1, I single you out for a special award for a year reality show whores like me won’t soon forget. Will you be my Real Rock Flavor Chance Of New York Money?

MOST DESERVING WINNER: Craig (The Mole). If they ever bring the show back, future Moles should study Craig's gameplay. He flew under the radar by flying over it, openly blowing challenges by playing the "lovable-big-guy-who-sucks-at-challenges" card to the hilt, and it damn well WORKED! He was the last person that just about anyone suspected.
(RUNNER-UP: Bob (Survivor: Gabon). Even if you ignore the two fake idols he made from scratch (both of which looked almost better than the real ones), Bob was easily one of the best strategists to play the game, not to mention one of the most likable, and towards the end he even stepped it up physically, and won a number of key challenges. (My favourite bit of strategy on Bob's part (aside from the fake idols)? Near the end, knowing the vote would be tied going into tribal council, he took the time to practise making fire until he had it down pat. It paid off, and he won the tie breaker easily.))


BEST FAKE REALITY SHOW: Total Drama Island. Take a number of reality show stereotypes (the scheming bitch, the lovable big guy, the crazy chick, the "jock" who sucks at challenges, the attractive airhead, and so on), throw in a number of teen drama cliches (the goth chick, the rebel, the geeky wannabe, the "Mean Girl", the party dude, etc.), and what do you get? A lot of overlap. Throw in a smarmy host, a setting so harsh it puts most seasons of Survivor to shame, showmances, alliances, rivalries, rules that seem to change on a whim, and challenges seemingly designed to inflict as much physical and emotional damage on the contestants as humanly possible, and you wind up with the most entertaining reality show parody since the first season of The Joe Schmo Show.


LEAST DESERVING SEMI-FINALIST: Kaitlyn Mayer (America's Got Talent). A four-year-old "singer" who can't even pronounce her "R"s, but still made the Final 10, just because she's so gosh-darn cute. Hell, letting her make it past the auditions was just setting her up for heartbreak. (And if any reality show producers are reading this, if the grand prize of your contest includes a featured performance in a show on the Las Vegas strip, then for God's sake, have a minimum age that's at least in the double digits. Seriously.)


BEST SONG: Sean Cullen's "Thank You For the Porn" (Last Comic Standing). 'Nuff said. :)

Much like 2007, one acronym can best describe 2008: BOHICA. For those just walking in, that stands for "Bend Over, Here It Comes Again." At least that's how it felt for me.

Look, I might have missed some good TV moments from other shows (not to Maple: I'll get to TDI one day, because I was amused with the bits I did see), because what I saw was disheartening. There were "all-stars" taking on "fans" that didn't know most of the unofficial rulesof the game they were playing, an award-winning show getting neatly divided into "racers" and "race-nots," the quiet cancellation of one of my fave shows, the fading of one of the few MTV programs that wasn't that awful on a consistent basis, a great summer show undermined by the brainlessness of its asshole judges . . . and, oh yeah, the return of one of my favorite shows rendered moot by a total lack of promotion from its network.

*deep breath* And that's just the crap I can think of from the top of my head. But let's try to get to the cream of the crop first, shall we?

Best Show: The Amazing Race 12

Yes, this is the one from 2007 that spilled over to '08 thanks to CBS starting that season with Viva Laughlin. I honestly think it counts. Anyway, the three episodes were as consistently good as the installments preceding it, highlighted by the elimination of alpha douche team Nathan Hagstrom and Jennifer Parker; an ouster made funnier because it was Jenn's birthday. From there came the finale, and a final Roadblock involving getting certain items on a mat. The inoffensive TK Erwin & Rachel Rosales walked away with $1 million, despite being far back of the pack two legs earlier. Really, they were rather meh, but I liked 'em, even when I met them at TARCon and they admitted to taking cues from pseudo-hippie dipshits BJ & Tyler. Ronald Hsu managed not to be an asshole to his daughter Christina until the finale, and Nicholas Fulks & Donald Jerousek (the ultimate jack of all trades) set a high mark for future grandchild/grandparent teams. The season was slightly better than average, but given the other reality shows out there, I'd say this one was best.

Honorable Mention

The Amazing Race 13 It's your typical TAR season, full of exotic locales, awesome sights, and Phil Keoghan putting all other hosts to shame (more on that later). The reason why it didn't get my top pick? Too many teams making too many mistakes. After three legs, it was painfully obvious that only four teams were capable of making it to the final episode: Brother/sister act Nick & Star Spangler (I know, right?!?), cute mother & son duo Toni & Dallas Imbimbo, token dating couple Terence Gerchberg & Sarah Leshner, and estranged married couple Ken (the cheater) and Tina Greene. In the last few legs, the wheels started flying off the bus; Terrance & Sarah tried a Fast Forward involving eating yucky meat, only to fail because of Terrance's vegetarianism. Next, Dallas lost his team's passports and money; despite a game effort involving begging in the streets of Moscow, not only was the team eliminated, the passports were returned to them too late for them to join the celebration at the finish line. The biggest beneficiaries of these flubs? Frat dummies Andrew Lappitt & Dan Honig, who probably hurt themselves filling out their applications. To the viewers' relief, they wound up in third place, and Nick & Starr won a record seventh leg to get the big money in the end. A good season, but between the aforementioned flubs and a massive brain fart from comic geeks Mark Yturralde & Bill Kahler, one would have to wonder "what if?"

As always, thanks to Senor Audacity for starting the thread. This should keep me busy for weeks.

LUCKIEST S.O.B.s: Andrew & Dan (TAR 13). They misread clues. They got lost. They once repeatedly screwed up a challenge that basically involved marching in a straight line. And yet, in just about every round, someone else wound up screwing up even worse. And the only time they do wind up in last place turns out to be one of the few non-elimination rounds. And even then, they only made it into the final round because another team lost their money and passports. Granted, the luck didn't hold in the finals, and they wound up with quite possibly the worst cab driver in Portland, Oregon, and ended up so far behind they didn't have a chance.


BEST CONTESTANT NAME IN THE HISTORY OF REALITY TELEVISION: Starr Spangler (TAR 13). Bonus points for being a cheerleader. From Texas. :)

I think that "Starr" is her middle name. As a Mets fan, I can appreciate that, what with Lynn Nolan Ryan, George Thomas Seaver and Henry Louis Gehrig. Okay, that last guy died over twenty years before the Mets were born, but you get the idea. And she wasn't the only "Star" on CBS in 2008, but I'll get to that in due time.

The Road To Hell Award: Survivor: Micronesia -- Fans Vs. Favorites

After three abortions of "all-star" editions from CBS shows with totally underserving winners, you'd have to wonder what was going through Mark Burnett's mind. Actually, pitting long-time applicants versus some of the best players the show has ever seen was a good idea . . . in theory. On the fan side, you had a woman who had no idea the toil the game could take and wound up quitting (Kathy Sleckman), a guy who got used and abused by others even as he resembled a bull in a china shop (Joel Anderson, or "Mongo," my pet name for him), and one dope who came into the game looking malnourished and weak even before Joel tossed him around a dangerous course (Chet Welch or "Jonny Feedme"). The "Favorites" weren't much better. For every Ozzy Lusth and Jonathan Penner (who reluctantly bowed out after injuring himself), you had Ami Cusack and Eliza Orleans from Vanuatu, sucking up air time the far superior Twila Tanner could have had. Jon Dalton scored an invite, then decided he'd rather go back to his ANTM wife. Fan fave Yau-Man Chan got booted in an episode with bickering between Jonathan and Cirie Fields, prompting the following reaction from me: "It's like watching your favorite aunt and uncle (separate couples) fight during Thanksgiving dinner, and the beloved granduncle keeling over in the mashed potatoes." The final few episodes involved one blindside after another, with a Boise State mentality. To wit: "If every hare-brained, whacko scheme we've implemented has worked so far, maybe this one will as well." Thus, we wound up with totally dummy Jason Siska falling for Ozzy's fake idol and boning Eliza in the process, and Erik Reichenbach getting guilted into giving away his immunity idol before getting voted out. In the end, Cirie tried gamely to stay in the game, but failed and got booted on Day 38. In the previous season, Amanda Kimmel blew the jury session and wound up with third place. This time . . . right, she blew it again, making herself an honorary member of the Mets bullpen staff. And the lucky louse who won the cool million? Parvarti Shallow, who had zero business getting an invite to begin with.

Great takes, keep 'em comin'. I will say this: TAR could be back to where it was after the blow the All-Stars season gave it, but for the life of me I don't think I could tell. Survivor's come all the way back, though.

Worst Show Of The Year, Non-VH1 Division: Beauty And The Geek 5

It pains me to write this. I believe the first edition of BATG was the second-best CR series of 2005 (it had the misfortune of premiering the same year as Project Runway) because it showcased people you didn’t usually see on reality shows – OK, geeks – bringing a much-needed self-deprecation to these programs and because while it was a competition, you really believed that everybody at the end learned from their experiences and sought to improve their intellectual curiosity, their image, and their sense of self after the show was over. Maybe it was inevitable that as you continue to scrape for contestants, you will find not beauties nor geeks but famewhores who see this merely as a chance to get to Hollywood. But somewhere along the life of this series (the sixth season of which may soon air on MTV and feature D-listers and the hotties, according to the infallible Wikipedia), that innocence was lost.

The competition aspect of BATG suffered just as mightily. There was usually a “Beauty Challenge” and a “Geek Challenge,” and the teams with those two winners would pick two teams that would face off in a Q&A to determine who would go home. But in subsequent seasons they threw in so many different ways to eliminate players and teams that it twisted itself into irrelevance. This season delayed the traditional pairing of teams by two episodes so they could have a "Beauties vs. Geeks" showdown – not the way to go if the original concept of the show was to have the two camps learn from each other. These twists were revealed in the way only reality shows can do them – with Mike Richards, a host who slowly curdled into a cut-rate version of that punk-ass Carson Daly, waiting for the music to build and the editors to go through their obligatory series of reaction shots before making the teams do something that viewers, though surprised, thought was a complete waste of time. Saddest of all, however, was all the fighting that seemed to be going on. The best CR shows have some drama, but you have to be careful not to alienate those who watch this show expecting the people in that mansion to eventually bury the hatchet. Mr. Demi Moore and the host of Fun House didn’t really care about that and instead decided to cast a man-eating shrew (Amber) and a “Gaysian” who become more insufferable every second he was on (Greg). It all subtracted down to a shrill, small fizzling-out of a show’s free-TV run that could have been a redeeming entry in the world of reality TV if the powers that be wanted to keep it that way.

The Rest Of The Worst:

• Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann: Possibly the most pointless Competitive Reality show in 2008, the two non-lead judges from Dancing With The Stars held a very expensive cross-country tour in order to make pick-up teams of people who can sing and dance. (These people are “double threats” only; I guess it’s lowered expectations from the “triple-threats” we always hear about.) They sang and dance on a show, like, three times before there was a winner. And the winning team … where did they go? No, seriously, what are they doing right now? Most shocking of all: Host Drew Lachey, so charismatic as a contestant on DWTS2, seemed out of his depth as ringleader of this DOA program.
  
• A Shot At Love 2: The only reason I’m not including this creep-fest with the Of Love coterie of programs for that extra-special RTA above is because, inexplicably, this show’s on MTV, not VH1. Otherwise, the grossness (eating a pig’s vagina), the swearing and fighting (amongst and between genders, which is a twist), and the drama (Tila chooses Kristy … but Kristy says no! Horrors!!) would fit perfectly. Extra points for the bad acting from Tila Tequila, although she is still hot and I still want to be her MySpace friend.
  
• Stylista: Another show without a reason. Who Will Be … America’s Next Editorial Assistant? Can I apply for a job, because it seems like tasks such as arranging pictures in an article and furnishing a model’s apartment is shit I can do. The resident crazy bitch was the in-over-her-head law school student Kate, but even she seemed to be as capable for this entry-level position as the thankfully more sane Johanna. The real crazy bitch, however, was Megan, a woman who seems to have Anne Hathaway’s looks but seemingly not her well-adjusted comportment; the finalist saw the writing on the wall after her interviews didn’t go well, so on a blog after the finale she said she punted the interviews because she got bored and didn’t want the job anyway. Sure you did … well, maybe I believe you on the bored part.
  
• Crowned: The Mother Of All Pageants: Shouldn’t the entire pageant industry be put out of its misery? I remember back in high school that the Miss America pageant was the highest-rated show the week it was on. In 1980. The world has learned to walk on its own two feet without needing a woman who can talk about world peace, play the flute and look fucking hot in a swimsuit. So this attempt to make a cult of a business relevant again only showed that, while there are many sincere folks who think this is a worthwhile pursuit, pageants are still kind of … creepy. It may not have been the brightest idea to have as host Shanna Moakler/Barker, a former Miss USA who decided to get bare-ass naked and become Miss December 2001, then turn into a reality star and become Miss Travis Barker. Nor was it a flash of genius to allow non-pageant experienced couples to compete, most egregious of which is the (literally) icky Angela & Tenia.

Thank God these are back. They're always so funny.



I know! As soon as I heard that someone was losing their passports, I was hoping it would be these two, just so that we could call the customs/immigration people Starr Spangler Banners. (Yeah, I'm here till Thursday. Try the veal.)

I completely forgot about this show. Not only was it pointless, the winner of Dance Wars won a record contract. Yup, that makes sense.

Just give her the tacky mirror ball trophy and save us 10 weeks (most predictable conclusion): Kristi Yamaguchi on DWTS. Was there anyone who seriously doubted that she would win? Thus making her pro partner the second luckiest SOB (after Dandrew). It didn't help that that particular season was filled with some bad dancing, boring celebs, a horrific group dance that I wish they saved us all 10 weeks of bad dancing, Samantha Harris and bad costumes.

Most annoying reality show contestant: There are so many to choose from and Lisa from Top Chef comes to mind as well as Cristian, Blayne and Suede from PR. But Kenley from Project Runway 5 beats them all. From her annoying voice, immature behavior and ignoring Tim Gunn, she makes Santino kinda tolerable.

Chiming in from Down Under.

Best Show: The Amazing Race

Even ignoring the fact that being the first show in history to win six consecutive Emmies has got to mean something, TAR is still an unquestionable icon of the reality genre. After a tremendously bad run over the past few years, the three seasons of TAR which aired down here in 2008 (seasons 10, 12, and 13) show that the show is entering a renaissance of sorts -- and I don't mean like that Italian detour in TAR 12. Granted, you guys had to put up with "All"-"Stars" in between, but the other two CBS "All"-"Stars" shows also followed fairly good seasons with craptacular suckfests of putridity. Unfortunately (and more on this later), everything the producers had tried to do with the show in the early seasons has all but vanished from the show. TAR 13 managed to fix all the problems with tasks, but now casting has slipped into mediocrity. If they can repair that too, this show will be perfect again. And... seriously, my username is a reference to the show. Like I wasn't going to vote for it.

Worst Show: Big Brother: Big Mouth

Yeah, it's not technically a reality show on its own merits. But I reserve the right to consider this truly woeful Big Brother spin-off a separate show, on the grounds of its different hosts and focus. Down here, where TV networks can show all the swearing and cock they want to as long as they warn people, we used to have an Uncut version of BB showing all the sex talk and showering you guys would have to get from the live feeds. Unfortunately, that got canned halfway through 2006, partially as the result of a sexual assault controversy (mmm... turkey). Channel Ten, the network that aired BB, decided to try and revive the concept by pairing it with a discussion panel supposedly having smart discussions about what happened in the house. Unfortunately, this panel (comprised of two failed comedians, and a rotating panel of former housemates and annoying radio stars) was more interested in turning the show into a one-liner contest, and the combination of this and the prudish inmates meant that what happened on this show was basically an hour of padding and of everybody trying to convince us not to vote out certain people. And we're talking people who would almost make Dick Donato look tolerable. (Seriously, that fuckwad is no less offensive in a three-inch box on my computer screen.) How bad was it? Ten's "token-show-we-got-from-MTV-because-we've-run-out-of-Simpsons-repeats" Date My Mom wasn't even close.

Most Irrelevant Show: Last Comic Standing

Who cares? Honestly, between the flawed system, the backdoors opening for experienced comics during the auditions while others get shut out, and the eternally lame-ass Bill Bellamy, this is a show that NBC should have put out of its misery. At least with The Apprentice, there's a tiny chance a "fired" contestant could go berserk and lunge for Trump's throat.

Thanks to the approach of the Olympics, the season was relatively short. NBC could have paused the season for a few weeks and wrapped it up after the Games, but that wasn't an option. We had two heirs of Dat Phan's legacy with Esther Ku and Papa CJ. The former went on and on about being Asian. CJ was from India and did jokes that you'd expect from Apu in a given episode of The Simpsons, but he never got new material. Viewers probably contemplated shooting him so he'd be reincarnated as a better comedian. The season was a suck-filled blur, to the point where I need Wikipedia to fill in the blank. Here's the punchline: mediocre comic Iliza Shlesinger won the five-way phone-in vote . . . and much like Dat (who I maintain was a better winner than Ralphie May would've been), she won because she was challenged by other comics and managed to win. Snore. I did like cello-using Jim Taveres, and I didn't hold the one appearance of Wings against him. Once again . . . blur.

Most Neglected Reality Show: The Mole

*deep breath . . . .trying to maintain*

It was a dream come true. One of the most intelligent reality shows was coming back thanks to the writer's strike. ABC did subliminal spots and all looked well. Then the network dumped it on Mondays at 10 p.m., probably on the assumption that the old slot for the Celebrity Mole seasons would work to avoid confusion. The show would follow The Bachelorette, which is about as far removed from a MENSA-approved show that you can get without having it on MTV or VH1. From there, the promotion dried up, and The Mole's ratings dropped. Meanwhile, ABC was too busy promoting the two Tuesday night "reality" shows: Wipeout and I Survived A Japanese Game Show. If ABC wanted to be even more Japanese, Gwen Stefani would have hosted the block, flanked by two dozen Harajuku girls. In the end, The Mole was planted back in the ground, and few people gave a shit . . . a damn shame, since even this show with an average cast and more reality cliche demographics could still kick ass. ABC didn't care . . . and they followed that up by canceling Pushing Daisies, a move equal to pulling the plug on rainbows and puppies.

Worst Scheduling: So You Think You Can Dance 4

So, there's this little itty bitty sports carnival called the Olympic Games. You may have heard of it. The television networks in Australia certainly have. It's the time when one network shows three minutes of "live" "highlights" every hour, surrounded by assorted commercials and padding, and still rates higher than anything else on TV just because the other stations don't even give off the impression of trying to win the ratings week. [Americans, our ratings system essentially works out to 40 weeks of sweeps every year, even though the networks are barely trying for most of it.] So, against the Olympics this year, Ten decided to put on SYTYCD, three consecutive nights a week, with the performance and results shows so badly edited together into one long package you'd swear the current Survivor editors were taking a second job. Yeah, not gonna get a lot of viewers, regardless of how popular it is, and regardless of the ever-cool Cat Deeley.

Worst Revival: Gladiators

Firstly, a caveat to be truly fair to this. I was born in 1990, and thus I was the perfect age to be captivated by the original giant-cotton-bud-and-lycra fest when our version premiered down here in 1995. So I was expecting the show to be less spectacular than it was back then. But even I was shocked at how bad this piece of crap was. Out were the ever-smiley Kimberley Joseph and the adorable Mike Hammond; in were the somewhat-bland Zoe Naylor and the Australian Ted McGinley, Tom Williams. Out were the shyly competent Condor, the awesomely bad Vulcan, and Cher's evil twin Fury; in were two former Dancing With The Stars contestants, a 5'6" Gladiator of Afghani heritage frequently referred to as the "warrior from the wasteland", and trying to bet on which way Amazon would manage to get herself disqualified this week. Out was any sense of spontaneity and variety; in were the Gladiators having catchphrases ("You've been Viperised!"?!) and stupid hand motions. Dear show: If you are coming back this year (and AFAIK it doesn't look likely), please get back the humanity which made this show great. And this does not mean more contestant sob stories and or famous loved ones.

Best reality show casting: The Mole. Despite being away for a few years, in its unfortunate brief return, the show again did a terrific job casting. They get real people versus a bunch of model/actors. The cast was flawed but likeable and though Paul annoyed me so many times, he is more tolerable than other reality show contestants who seem too aware of the camera.

Most surprisingly entertaining show: Wipeout looked like a train wreck but with the snark and red balls that never got old, this was a the perfect reality show competition for the summer.

I hate to say it, but
Network most unable to sustain a reality show: The CW. None of their own concepts such as Crowned, Farmer Wants a Hoe, or Stylista made a real dent in the ratings. Top Model has steadily lost steam since it hit the CW, and Beauty and the Geek suffered a concept-wrecking format change that signalled its demise as a major (?) network program. I can't really say why they're so bad at it, and I was entertained by a few of those shows, but America has voted with its Nielsen numbers.

I do still love them for Gossip Girl and Supernatural, though! More drama and cute demon-hunters, please.

Best New Show Ruined By Bad Judges: Greatest American Dog

Here was the plot to CBS's newest reality show: Twelve trainers and their dogs compete in various challenge to test qualities that the pooches should have. Each week, three judges -- whom I'll get to in a minute -- would eliminate one pair from the game. Yes, there were headaches, like Beth Joy and her tendency to project her neuroses onto Bella Starlet, Brandy earning the nickname "Branshee" on the forums, and honorary Team Guido member David. And we're still waiting for Leroy the Border Collie to stop barking. But there were entertaining dogs, like Tillman the skateboarding Bulldog, the Brittany Spaniel-as-Lassie known as Star and her elderly owner Bill, the slightly caustic JD and his tightly-trained mix Galaxy, mothering Lauren and the wee Maltese known as Andrew . . . the point is that every week, there was always something to make you smile. Well, at least until the end of the episode, anyway.

Victoria Stillwell is a trainer and host of It's Me Or The Dog. Wendy Diamond edits Animal Fair magazine and brings her dog Lucky Diamond (a Maltese) to the show. Allan Reznik also edits a few magazines himself. A nice, solid, non-Paula Abdul-having panel, right? The trouble started in a photo shoot, where Ron was hammered by Wendy for arranging "single-handedly [had] the worst photo of a bulldog [she had] ever seen." Meanwhile, Laurie resorted to using a "snarl band" on Leroy to portray the concept of "anger," and Brandy more or less gave up with Beacon and "loving" . . . and Ron and Tillman were booted, but not before Tillman passed vicious gas on the way out. Bill & Star were the fan favorites, learning all sorts of new things and bringing out the best in each other. During a puppy-herding task, Bill was scolded for running Star too hard. The following week, Bill got hammered again for not working Star hard enough for a stunt challenge, and those two were eliminated. Finally, in the final three, bad blood between JD and one of the female judges over JD's alleged intimidation tactics boiled over, resulted in him and Galaxy getting shown the door before the final round. In the end, it was painfully obvious that the judges were in the bag for model/actor Travis and Presley, his young Boxer. While neither of them were offensive, they shouldn't have won like that. While I do hope for a second season, the judges should be changed or eliminated. I'd settle for a dog jumping up and nipping Victoria's face, but I'm mean like that.

There are a hell of a lot more bad shows I have to call out, so here’s a second Top 5 Worst Shows Of The Year:

• Bachelorette: Deanna: The first woman to be the chased instead of the chaser, Trista, may have been insufferable, but at least she’s still married to her man. The second, Meredith …say, what happened to her? She seemed like an alright girl, but she’s just dropped off the face of the earth. Jen, the third Bachelorette, had that rare mix of both arrogance and incompetence. But DeAnna Pappas added a huge helping of self-absorption that turned every viewer against her. I understand that even though we treat this as a game, DeAnna sure took it seriously, but damn, that freak-out when all the guys were just hanging out was the moment where at least I no longer cared whether she found love or not. And the fact that she stumbled and led on her suitors in a way similar to how Brad jerked her around seemed lost to her. But the most distressing part of this edition was the bunch of super-serious tools this show served up. We had a judgmental ex-football star; a guy who thought he could karate kick his way into DeAnna’s heart; a d-bag using the death of his parents as an excuse to be a d-bag; a vain chef who apparently was too tired to button up his shirt all the way; and the winner, a “free spirit” who thinks Jackson Pollock is a fashion designer. Jason – or as I started to call him the first time he took off his shirt, Flanders – was the only normal guy there, except that he had to drag his son into this mess, and into his own series.
  
• Hell’s Kitchen 4: Overrated Gordon Ramsey abusing more aspiring chefs. That was the season, right?
  
• Celebrity Circus: “OK, I’m sorry we shitcanned Singing Bee, but we still want to be in the Joey Fatone business, so to make it up to you we want to give you a new show. It’s basically gonna be Dancing With The Stars, but instead of ballroom dancing, we’re gonna have circus acts! And we already have the cast lined up: The midget from Jackass; the middle Brady boy who married that crazy-ass Top Model chick; that one-hit wonder from the nineties whom everybody confuses with CeCe Peniston; the black girl from Clueless who surrendered the pink in Playboy; and Rachel Hunter, who is by law supposed to be in every cut-rate reality show made till she dies. We’re gonna have three judges, but here’s the twist – instead of one of them having a foreign accent, we’ll have two of them with foreign accents – and one of them’s even got a lisp! And we’re gonna shake it up even more, see – instead of adding up the scores together, we’re gonna give them an average. Totally different. And oh yeah … we’d like you to dress like a circus M.C. What do you think?”
  
  “I think Spamalot is closing without hiring me. Where do I sign?”
  
• Momma’s Boys: Only three episodes shown in 2008 and it somehow ranks as one of the worst CR shows of the year? That only illustrates the power of Ryan Seacrest to get a cynical, poorly edited, overly narrated and dubiously unscripted show on the air because he hosts American Idol. NBC predates VH1 on crass love series, and the creepy twist – that men get to bring their overly clinging moms to help them choose – still makes this no better than the network’s other lowlights, For Love Or Money and Average Joe. Seacrest should be pilloried for even thinking about casting Khalood Bojnarowski, a gleefully bigoted bitch who we know is being set up for a comeuppance that will ring hollow. Absolute trash whose remaining episodes, by all accounts, will land this show in this list next year.
  
• I Want To Work For Diddy: No you don’t. Bunch of people compete to be Sean Combs’s/Puff Daddy’s/P. Diddy’s/Big Baby Jesus’s/Dirt McGirt’s personal assistant. People were united that virtually to a man, all these people sucked at one thing or another. But they were divided over Diddy; some people thought he was a vain egomaniac who liked chewing out his grunt wannabes, but others thought he was a smart businessman who at the same time was looking out for these aspirants. To me, the final straw was at the end, when Diddy selected the coasting, in-over-her-head Suzanne, then broke his own rule that there would only be one winner so he could also select the most intelligent one there, Mike. As one poster on the TWoP thread asked, “How many [assistants] does he NEED?”

Best Show Of The Year: Girlicious

Forgive me. Even I can’t believe I’m putting this down as #1. But I was going through my second year of unemployment (which is now going into Year 3: Anyone out there have a job for someone who ain’t skilled?) and there was nothing after America’s Next Top Model to change the channel to and I didn’t want to do anything else. So I got sucked into this program of barely legal girls trying out for a new band manufactured by Pussycat Doll Emeritus Robin Antin. These somewhat talented, mostly hot, very delusional young women sang or tried to sing, danced or tried to dance, but a lot of the time they fought – intensely and, for the viewer’s schadenfreude, hilariously. And these constant fights didn’t get repetitive; every week someone was fighting with someone else over something different (and stupid). Two things elevated this show over all others: The surprisingly real (at least to me) emotions from these girls who have their whole lives ahead of them yet feel like their worlds were going to end if they didn’t become a part of this band, and the preternatural poise and expressiveness with which they held themselves during on-camera interviews and, I’m not kidding, in their many fights. It dawned on me that the latter point is exactly the thing I remember most about the first season of ANTM, truly one of the ten or even five best-ever seasons of the genre. No, it couldn’t be true, I thought, there has to be something better than this glorious trash. Yet over the rest of the year no other show was able to knock this down from the top spot on my list. If my TWoP membership has to be revoked, so be it.

The Best Of The Rest:

• Survivor: Micronesia: Fans vs. Favorites: I just couldn’t put this #1 – the final Tribal Council once again was very underwhelming, I still have deep reservations over letting people do this show more than once, and the numerous blindsides are still a tad too much to be believed. However, if you take them as truth, this may be the most astounding and exhilarating edition since Pearl Islands and, possibly, the Holy Grail of Competitive Reality, this show’s first season. Just relive the moments: Joel dragging Chet around the gated course; Ozzy making up a fake Hidden Immunity Idol; Eliza’s “It’s a fucking stick!”; Amanda twirling the real Hidden Immunity Idol as she gave it to Jeff Probst; blindside after blindside; Cirie coming up short yet again despite her orchestrations that got her to the finals; and, of course, the Witches’ Coven of Parvati, Amanda, Cirie and Natalie. When you have three Survivors who left the game without getting their torches extinguished, you have a special season.
  
• America’s Best Dance Crew: I have seen and heard some resistance from this show and I’m shocked because I think this show, in particular the first season, is incredibly refreshing and exciting to watch. I didn’t think there was a way to freshen up the dance subgenre, and yet Randy Jackson, who is either horribly underestimated or incredibly lucky, found that having groups of people dance in intricate routines would be a very good show. And it was a very, very good show, with the sublime JabbaWockeeZ winning the first-ever crown. What all these dance crews did was mind-blowing. And it helps that this show was on MTV, a network where uplifting shows featuring actual talent are few and far between.
  
• Here Come The Newlyweds: I need to give a little love to this tiny gem of a show that snuck into ABC’s schedule Sunday nights in March. Seven freshly married couples compete with each other in small, harmless challenges that pump up the grand prize; after an Immunity Challenge, the couples then vote on who goes home. HCTN probably was viewed by many to be so lightweight and insignificant that it belonged on the ABC Family network. And they’re probably right. But I like this show a lot for what it wasn’t. The couples here by and large behaved like grown-ups. There was very little fighting and almost no profanity. Many of the challenges tested (albeit mildly) how well the newlyweds knew and trusted each other, and none of them were more humiliating than having the men ride down a hill in a go-kart. The producers that be didn’t try and foment drama between the contestants, for the most part. And best of all, I liked all the couples; even the one who saved themselves until marriage were annoying, not hateful. For someone who sees a lot of arguing and abuse on TV (let alone real life), HCTN was like winding up dinner with fruit for dessert; it was incredibly revitalizing, even cleansing, to finish off the end of my viewing week with something the whole family could watch together.
  
• Top Chef 4: I apologize; I missed the boat back in 2006 for not recognizing how good the novel first season was – as well as how execrable the vile, pointless second season was. I want to make it up and say that this season gets on this list, even with its monotonous group and catering challenges and inconsistent judging. The best chefs of this season match and even exceed those of the first and third seasons, and I found the mix of personalities and personality conflicts to be reminiscent of the first season. Plus I love the locales – Puerto Rico for the finale and Chicago, IMO the real cuisine capital of the country, for the season.

First of all, I don't know if I should be sorry or grateful I didn't use the phrase "screwed the pooch" in my last post. Secondly . . . Girlicious?!? A show about the Not Ready For Pussycat Players? Senor Audacity, are you in danger? Just misspell four words in a row and I'll contact the authorities.

Quietest Euthenasia: Who Wants To Be A Superhero?

I kept waiting for a word of my favorite summer show returning. And waited. And finally, Sci Fi just blahed about no third season. Like I said, it was about people trying to be better, albeit in Spandex. Wikipedia says something about a kiddie version of the show, but I'm not too enthusiastic about it. At least I got some good sketch ideas from the show.

Worst "Awards" Show: The Real World Awards

Since I missed Fox Reality's awards show (by accident, not design), I'll have to settle for a combination awards show and retrospective leading to the twentieth season of The Real World. Co-host and insult master Jeffery Ross got the vinegar taken out of him after he disrespected Puck -- like any right-thinking person would -- and the homeless-looking fucker and his buddies tossed him into the pool. We found "Slappy" Stephen causing shit with others. Oh, and he's engaged to a dude, which means that Irene was right about him all along. What else: Eric Fucking Nies looking like Jesus, Matt Smith being the only representive of the New Orleans season and looking like he ate a few of his ex-roomies, friggin' Beth engaged to some poor fucker who would end up knocking her up (dude...), and that's just off the top of my head. There was also a small tribute to troubled Frankie from San Diego, which segued into a segment on Pedro Zamora. As much as I admire a man who spent the remainder of his days getting people to not make the mistakes he made, you'd think MTV would've given Frankie a little more love, especially since Bunim-Murray convinced her to join the show over appearing on Starting Over, where she could've gotten some help.

And the awards stuff? Urrgh. For one thing, how does "Johnny Bananas" from Key West get named "Hottest Male," even with a flawed fan ballot? Coral got "Roommate You Love To Hate" "honors" over real assholes like Puck, Tyler and Trisha, and she "celebrated" by tossing her trophy (a fish bowl, which was cute) into the pool. Colie got "Biggest Playa"; not that I don't believe a woman can be considered a "playa," but I'm sure there are hundred of third-graders in Hawaii with scraggly blond-dyed hair thanks to Teck, and one of Cara's "romances" was underscored by David from New Orleans scatting "Come On Be My Baby Tonight." And the best season judged as judged by the fans? Austin. Yes, the season with no redeemable character aside from Lacey and the phone surgically attached to her hand, the season where we laughed at Danny getting sucker-punched into the pavement because he turned out to be an asshole, the season with the poor man's Nick & Jessica in Danny and Melinda. Also, Las Vegas made the top three. That's the season where things really went downhill. Sure, the new cast actually seems intelligent, but it'll be hard to get out of the shadow of suck that was the RWA's and The Real World: Hollywood.

Best Candid Reality Show: Rob & Big

I know, I'm predictable. The boys finished their run in the wake of Christopher "Big Black" Boykin becoming a father and leaving Rob Dyrdek's pad. Whether there was a falling out between the two is irrelevant, since the fun stuff always came out on camera. This show was pretty much the best reality program MTV had to offer, since there was no quarrels or drama. Well, there was Rob's cousin Drama, the oft-abused assistant who almost got replaced in one episode and humilated on his birthday in another . . . but it was all in good fun. The duo investigated the mystery of who dropped a deuce in their pool, tried to break records for the Guinness Book, and took their musical act to Cancun. Rob tried to walk a mile in Big's shoes by donning a fat suit and stilts as "Big Bob," got into the frenzy of racing turtles, and sought to get rich via the lottery and sacred geometry. While I fell in love with Tillman from Greatest American Dog, Meaty was still a fun bulldog to watch, as he became the face of a line of dog food owned by Dick van Patten (you cannot make shit like that up) and celebrated his second birthday in style with a My Super Sweet 16-type lavish party. And Mini the miniature horse got to compete in a show competition, despite not being properly groomed shortly until the event began.

While I do mourn the passing of Rob & Big, I take solace in Fantasy Factory, a new show with Rob, Meaty, and a new bulldog puppy named Beefy. It'll launch in February . . . and if it's as good as Rob & Big, it'll be worth watching.

Best Reality Spoof: Reality Bites Back

After Comedy Central canceled Drawn Together, I didn't think they'd get another reality parody . . . and then came Reality Bites Back. Comics would compete in spoofs of reality shows each week. Michael Ian Black -- the guy who's done, like, a zillion bits for VH1's I Love [Fill In The Blank] -- would ridicule the contestants, the show, and the genre itself. So You Think You Can Dance? got replaced by "So You Think You Can Dive?" with Olympic gold medalist Greg Louganis as judge. Rock Of Love's parody had a huge black woman in domination gear boss and humiliate the contestants. "The Amazing Disgrace" ended with a shout-out and improvement of Deal Or No Deal: pick a briefcase from a model, and it contains two smaller cases with dolls made up to be models. The bad news? Noted BMP reality whore Theo Vonkurnatowski (I don't even need to shorten it to "Von" or look it up) wound up winning over Amy Schumer, a Last Comic Standing alumnus who got screwed over last year. But at least we got to laugh for eight weeks straight, while LCS plodded along to little acclaim.

Shenanigans Of The Year: Assorted reality shows

So many rigged shows, so little time. From the Big Brother contestant who got evicted on the first night and then returned in a twist only to win it all, to the Biggest Loser contestant who was given a phone call home after binge eating 5000 calories in one sitting -- outside a temptation -- while the diet-abiding people got nothing, to the sheer pimping of certain Idol finalists (including the eventual winner) when other Top 24 finalists were completely ignored until their semi final, to the Dancing With The Stars celebrity who conveniently got to perform almost immediately after the higher-rating Doctor Who finished on another network every single week until he was eliminated, 2008 was just a whole Shenanigan Orgy down here.

Unceremoniously-Dumped Show (Multiple-Season Division): Big Brother

Eight years. Nine seasons (eight normal, one celebrity). One hundred and fifty-nine housemates. A combined total of 751 days in the house (though ominously, exactly 666 after the end of BB 2007). Around 1300 daily shows, evictions, and other assorted shows and specials. And to announce the end of what once was Australia's highest-rated show? A throwaway joke made by a talk show host... whose show aired immediately after a BB eviction, where their would have been ample time to mention in and mock the night's boring evictee for being the reason the show got cancelled. Idiots.

Unceremoniously-Dumped Show (Single-Episode Division): Bad Lads Army (runner-up: The Apprentice UK 2)

There are two winners for this award only because we didn't get to see enough of Bad Lads Army to tell whether it was a competitive reality show like production company stablemate Ladette to Lady, or a documentary like... documentaries. So in the event it's not, I'm going to focus on the other winner, the British version of The Apprentice. Branded as "Alan Sugar: The Apprentice" [sic], and promoted heavily throughout Seven's coverage of the Olympics, the show was expected to be as successful as the rival Nine Network's own British jackass import, Gordon Ramsay. It wasn't. Moved to a later timeslot without warning after only one episode, the show (far superior to Trump's version -- also a dismal failure down here -- in almost every way) really did not deserve the poor ratings and treatment it got. Plus, you've got to give some sort of props to a businessman who's willing to fire a CGI cardboard cutout of Trump for a commercial.

Best Pre-Show Advertising Blitz: Big Brother 2008

In a year when pre-show advertising blitzes seemed to continue unabated, from some of the Idol Top 100 singing Can You Feel It to the DWTS couples looking glitzy to TAR's "OMG! There are places where they don't speak American!!", one advertising campaign stood out as excellent among the other very good offerings last year. To set it up, our 2006 BB season was rocked by the forced eviction of two housemates after an alleged sexual assault (later revealed to be identical in nature to one which happened in the house the previous year without consequence), and the resulting uproar caused many well-known figures, including the then Prime Minister of our country, to call for the show's cancellation. So Channel Ten, in an effort to show that the show had changed drastically for the new year, spliced footage of these quotes in with the song I Don't Think So by Kelis. The sheer audacity that the producers had in turning some of the worst publicity the show has ever gotten anywhere in the world into some of the best, quite frankly, deserves several awards.

Most Improved Commercials: The Amazing Race (10, 12, and 13)

In previous years, Seven's treatment of TAR has been nothing short of abysmal. Even ignoring the constant late-night timeslot changes in the Early Seasons, having approximately three TAR-free weeks in between the TAR5 premiere and the TAR7 finale, and the decision to hold TAR10 off for over a year because We Needed To See The Weavers Bitch About Everything, Dammit!, the ads designed to get people watching haven't been that interesting. Almost every week, you'd get "When the race goes to [country or region], [quick shots of scenery], [description and shots of team/s arguing, crying, or getting lost]." Every week. Without fail. But in 2008, they must have gotten new people to advertise the show, because the ads were excellent by comparison. For example, the ad for the Lithuania episode of TAR12 -- which was actually a double episode down here, paired with the Croatia episode -- had a choral version of Amazing Grace being shattered by Jenn's screaming on the stilts. And closed on Shana/Other Jenn screaming and about to be in a car crash. Awesome. Oh, and: they didn't make a Borat reference. AT ALL. (Well, unless you count naming Kazakhstan by name, because without that movie I guarantee we would have been treated to "When the race goes to the former Soviet Union...".) And I am depressed to be able to call something which uses the hammer-and-sickle to represent the concept of Russia and calls a female wrestler "Zilla Godzilla" as "improved", but... sadly, it is.

While I'm thinking about it . . .

Biggest Clusterfuck: The "Best Host" Emmy nominations

Over the past few years, we've had two major categories in the Emmys for the best reality shows. This past year, a new award was made: Best Host. Nothing wrong with that, right? For starters, one of the nominees was Heidi Klum, who was more of a judge than an actual host. The other nominees were actually hosts: Jeff Probst, Ryan Seacrest, Tom Bergeron and Howie Mandel. Howie presented Problem #2: Is Dead Or No Deal actually a reality show? Even worse, Phil Keoghan got snubbed, despite the fact that he had hosted the only show ever to win Outstanding Reality-Competition Program.

And then the awards show hosts were announced, and guess who? Bergeron, Klum, Mandel, Probst and Seacrest. Apparently, the fix had been in; why else would Heidi and Howie get nominated? And Phil get snubbed? Anyway, the show sucked eggs, and to add insult to injury, the category winner was announced right before Best Comedy and Best Drama. And the winner? Jeff Probst. A man who influences people at Tribal Council and has open man-crushes. The last person who should have won the inaugural won it. Oh, and TAR won its six consecutive award, thanks in no small part to Phil Keoghan, whose jock Jeff Probst can never lift.

Lantern7, "screwed the pooch" is one of my favorite phrases, and I resolve to use it more this year. Girlicious was awesome and I stand by my pick; you should see it. Your summaries of Candid Reality shows, Real World in particular, still humbles me.

Re: The Emmys. Howie Mandel should not have been nominated. I don't quite understand how you say the fix was in when they were nominated before being named hosts. I didn't see the awards show, so I'll take your word for it, but the way Jeremy Piven took time out of his acceptance speech to trash all of them made me like Piven a lot less. And like I posted before, I don't mind Probst winning the inaugural Best Host Emmy because he is the first. Of course, nothing says we can't give out our own awards!

raceguy120390, I appreciate the way you're reporting how reality 2008 was Down Under.

Most Improved Show: Celebrity Apprentice

Oh great, we all thought, Donald Trump’s ego is now officially out of control. This show was dead until someone got the idea that instead of actual applicants this program should go the d-list celebrity route and have them fight for charity. I didn’t think the change would work – but I’m shocked that it did! We’re not talking about Oscar winners here, but to me, the fact that I know these people helps me glom onto them in a way that I just didn’t want to do with the anonymous Apprenti of the last couple seasons. And when put into a pressure-packed situation where, unlike previous contestants, you have the means (read: people with lots of money) to clobber your opponent, this season presented a situation where the problems weren’t due to your own team’s limitations but the other team’s massive firepower. And just as massive were the celebrities’ egos, starting with that horrid provocateur of tabloid trash, Piers Morgan, and followed closely by the afro-coiffed KISS skeleton, Gene Simmons. Week after week we were entertained by these famewhores who wanted to demonstrate to Trump that they had business acumen by trying to find the perfect tagline for printers, and they had no problem looking like small children in order to throw others under a bus. Consider CA the sixth-best CR show of the year, only because Trump gave the title to Morgan (although he made him feel like shit in the final Boardroom, which was so awesome). I can’t believe I’m saying this: When’s the next season going to start?

Hell, I’ll Add A Seventh-Best, Too: I Survived A Japanese Game Show

This may be skirting my rules of what a Competitive Reality show is, but this is certainly not Wipeout, which is both a game and an overrated waste of time. Once again I am sucked into this show, which took ten wannabes halfway around the world to compete in Majide!, one of those gonzo Japanese game shows, because of its relative gentleness. But beyond the behind-the-scenes drama and backbiting that qualifies ISAJGS as CR, this program served mainly as a Japanese travelogue, a window into how a much-admired but still mysterious culture entertains itself when all it wants to do is come home from a long day at work and turn on the TV, just like Americans. This show is what The Amazing Race would be if it devoted itself to one country for an entire season. An underrated horizon-expander.

RIP: Secret Talents Of The Stars

I guess no one wanted to see George Takei do country. This show was put down after just one episode. Was it that bad?

Theoretically, This Show Was On: Dance Machine

Was this show on even once? This didn’t have the publicity push Secret Talents did, but ABC promoted it a little over the summer. Seriously, was this show even on?

NPH mocked Howie too. After that horrible opening, they all deserved it, IMO. ITA with lantern7 about the reality show host so with that, I also say The Person who should have taken Heidi Klum's spot in Best Reality Show Host nominee is: Cat Deeley. Phil's omission was mentioned and he was robbed of a nomination. But so was Cat Deeley. She handles the audition rounds much better than Ryan does the audition rounds on AI. She is genuinely supportive of the dancers on SYTYCD and keeps that show moving along. Also no one can wear those outrageous dresses like her. Though after that stinker of an Emmy opening, I am glad to see Phil and Cat avoided that embarassment.

Who really should have won best reality show host (among the nominees): Tom Bergeron. He keeps that cheese fest known as DWTS moving along. In that particular season, he had to deal with Marie's fainting as well as that awful doll dance. He deserves an award for those two things alone. He also works with a useless cohost. He has a quick wit and makes it all look effortless.

Thanks, Senor Audacity.

Dance Machine was non-visible down here, too. It got pimped for a couple of weeks, lasted one episode, then got dumped in a timeslot previously occupied by Moonlighting reruns.

I'm done with shows, onto my People.

The Grant Bowler Award (Best Host): Phil Keoghan, The Amazing Race (10, 12, and 13)

Anderson Cooper? Not only did he not host any shows which aired down here, but I'd still rank him below Grant even if he did (Yeah, yeah, heresy. But he's probably only the third or fourth best Mole host, despite being the best US reality host). Trust me, Anderson doesn't measure up to the awesomeness that is Grant. ...But that's not why you called. Host of the year? To me, Phil is certainly starting to seem a little fed up with all the arseholes, ditzes, and to a much lesser extent fathers, permeating the soul of his show (Incidentally, the word permeate? One of only two things I've ever learned from Jeff Probst. That, and Why Fang Suck.) But on the other hand, this dislike of bad casting just makes me like him even more. Nobody else even comes close to this level of awesome. Well, except for these runners-up:

James Mathison, Australian Idol 6: Who would definitely win this award if I limited it solely to Australian hosts. Imagine how much Probst visibly hated Fang, and add that to how much Randy visibly hated all the other contestants. That's roughly equal to how much ol' Bugeyes visibly hated superfluous new co-host Ricki-Lee Coulter (more on her in Worst Host). And yet because of the combination of Bug's pre-existing awesomeness and Shrieky-Me's pre-existing bitchiness, it was awesomely fun to watch.

James Kerley, Taken Out: To call Kerley a diamond in the rough is insulting to both him and the rough representing this ridiculously bad dating show.

The Tom Williams Award (Worst Host): Tom Williams, Gladiators

To answer the obvious question, the award is named after his pisspoor hosting of The Mole when he took over the show for what turned out to be its final season in 2005, and not for his pisspoor hosting of Gladiators, which won him the award. This guy seems to watch the shows and figure out what sort of personality the host needs. Then, he hosts the show with exactly the opposite personality than needed. For The Mole, he tried being everybody's best friend, and nobody liked him because, as mentioned above, Grant Is God (and Tom is a piece of bathroom tile scum by comparison). For Gladiators? He was that kid in school who was always trying to be cool by hanging out with the popular bad boys, and yet always taking the teacher's side whenever they did anything wrong. And it sucked. He was more interested in supposedly spontaneously spurting the assorted horrible Gladiator-name catchphrases than in talking to the contestants themselves, who were supposed to be the stars of the show, and more interested in yelling into the camera than taking note of the live audience, who were there for a reason and deserved to at least have someone try and entertain them. Plus, his uber-Ocker accent makes Steve Irwin's seem normal. For that, and increasing the number of lifestyle/reality shows cancelled after you started hosting them to three, you win the Rita and a choice of Gladiators to be pulverised by. I suggest Bionica. But Tom's not alone in sucking. Your runners-up?

Ricki-Lee Coulter, Australian Idol 6: Firstly, there was no need for Shrieky-Me to be added to the hosting lineup. The two hosts were excellent and were probably the only thing in the stale format that did not need changing after the 2007 season. So, logically, the producers decide that while one host takes some time off during the audition process to get married in his fiance's native Israel, they better cast their very own Wailing Wallflower to fill in not only for the auditions, but to do much of the backstage work throughout the finals themselves. Ugh. The idea would have been bad to begin with. But Shrieky-Me is perhaps the single most annoying finalist in Australian Idol history, and her tendency throughout the season to make the contestant performances and song choices All About Her earned her a whole new legion of haters. It got so bad that the producers organised a "Talk To Your Idol" call-in segment for the last few weeks of the season, and miraculously found the one person in Australia who instead of asking the question like she was told spent the entire time gushing about how good Shrieky-Me was hosting. Luckily, we had Bugeyes on screen at the same time trying not to burst into laughter, and he cemented his place as The Best Australian Thing On Television.

Kyle Sandilands, Jackie O, Mike Goldman, Ryan Fitzgerald, Bree Amer, Tony Squires, and Rebecca Wilson, Big Brother 2008: Because the craptacularity is not limited to one host or spinoff program. They all suck. And none in any of the good ways. (Though there are rumours about Goldman.) At least Julie Chen can laugh at how bad she is. These people? Think they're actually being entertaining.

Player Of The Year: Bryce, The Biggest Loser 3

You had me before hello, considering the sheer awfulness of the rest of the cast. Ironically, the single action which made him the shining light of the season actually should probably have never happened. The week the game went to individuals, a twist was introduced. That week's Biggest Loser at the weigh-in was presented with a case containing $50,000, and could choose to give it up and stay in the game, or keep it and quit. But if they took the money, it would be taken out of the eventual winner's $200,000 prize. Bryce's only remaining Black Team-mate Michelle was the week's winner by some fluke of nature, and agonised over the decision before turning down the money. At which point Cosi (you may think of him as a fat lispy version of Rocky from Survivor Fiji, and you'd be about right, but more on him later) completely blasted her for what he perceived as the stupidity of her decision. After bitching and bitching incessantly, Bryce had clearly had enough, and completely shut him down. It's one of those moments you really have to see to believe. Cosi -- a breakfast anchor on one of the country's largest radio stations -- later claimed that Bryce threatened to break his legs, but even with that anyone who saw what a fuckwit Cosi was was completely on Bryce's side. And so a legend was born, when even implied physical violence doesn't turn you against someone because the alternative is so bad. Let's hope this year's season doesn't make us feel so conflicted. Not so conflicted is my love for the following runners-up:

Ida Nerida and Tania Khan, The Amazing Race Asia 3: So it technically didn't "air" down here. But it has been ages since a team on TAR has taken itself this unseriously whilst not yelling out "T-TOW" every fourteen seconds. Thank you ladies. Shame you didn't win.

Luke Jacobz (and by extension Steve, his stomach), Dancing With The Stars 8: Coulda done with a little less krumping (read: not in every freaking routine), but aside from that he is the happiest I have ever been with a DWTS winner down here. And I have not hated a winner since our very first season.

ETA: Will try and find a clip of the Bryce smackdown to prove why I picked him.

ETA2: Here it is.

Best Finale: The Amazing Race 13

Granted, this was more about Andrew & Dan not winning, since they basically putzed and bumbled their way throughout the race, which I'll cover down the road. But they got a bad cabbie and wound up taking third place, which was about eight pegs higher than they deserved. The finale came down to siblings Nick & Starr and estranged couple Ken & Tina, two teams that had won all but one leg. Both ran into a less complicated finale task than previous seasons, as they pecked through a sea of clue boxes, searching for pictures to match to clues given on a board. In the end, Nick & Starr won their record seventh leg and became the first family team to win a conventional season. The only down side to the festivities was the absence of Toni & Dallas. While they did retrieve their passports quickly after their elimination leg, it was not soon enough to get them to fly out for the big mat love-in. Perhaps this was a blessing, since Starr would've celebrated by making out with Dallas for a good half-hour. They made up for it at TARCon. Lotsa necking over there, and I didn't mind it for once. So hawwwwwt.

Worst Finale: Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Island

BMP tried to switch up the formula with their latest installment of the Challenge. This time, the players were left to their own devices on an island. Every episode, three of them would compete in an event, where the two losers would try and convince the others to not vote them off the island.The two surviving contestants would then be given keys to boats that had to be assembled in the finale, and the first crew to find the $300,000 worth of gold would win it. Veteran viewers would recognize the misogyny amongst the MENSA applicants from prior seasons; this time, the main offenders were "Johnny Bananas" and Kenny, two utter, utter douchebags who headed an alliance known as "The Family." Their main rival: pain in the ass lesbian Evelyn, who had managed to swipe Johnny's key from him (part of the competition), only to have Johnny take it back and do everything but piss on her. And with time running down, Evelyn looked to be stranded on the island with those who didn't possess keys.

But then came hope . . . the four non-key possessors would get to duke it out amongst themselves, and the winner would take a key from one of the eight holders. Miracle of miracles, Evelyn pulled off the win . . . but after heavy deliberation, she decided to take the key away from Dunbar, the sociopath from The Real World: Sydney. Sure, Dunbar's key was given to him by Abram -- because sociopaths recognize sociopaths -- and not earned, but Kenny and Johnny were still in the game. And worse, when ineffectual host TJ Lavin told the eight finalists to sort the two teams amongst themselves, Evelyn basically sold out her values and teamed with Kenny, Johnny and Derrick, the latter of whom should really know better. The other crew? One male (Ryan) and three females (Jenn, Paula and Robin). While viewers could laugh at Paula's tears after she trusted ex-roommate Johnny, the obvious quartet got $75,000 each, leaving a very bad stench behind in the process. But with BMP, what other result could have been expected?

Honorable Mention

Greatest American Dog . . . like I stated earlier, the three judges involved were in the bag for Travis & Presley. After interviewing the three finalists, we saw that Andrew (Maltese) was too attached to owner Laurie, while Presley (Boxer) proved to still be a little bit of a puppyhead. Galaxy (mixed) was under the microscope, leading to the judges asking JD how often he bathed his dog. Between that and prior arguements about how JD alledgedly "controlled" Galaxy, the top performers were expelled, but not before JD "saluted" the panel by lifting Galaxy's hind quarters at them.

After a session from Laurie and Travis about how JD deserved to go (translation: "Holy fuck, we're still in this!!!!"), the dogs got put through their paces, but it was obvious that Travis & Presley would win, and they did. Between the ousters of Galaxy and Star (the old yet whipsmart Brittany Spaniel), the finale left a bad taste in my mouth.

Wow, you guys are doing great. Let me give you a morsel and promise to post something more substantive over the weekend:

Underrated Show Of The Year/Eight-Best CR Program: Farmer Wants A Wife

Or as the TWoP thread put it, Barnyard Bachelor (credit goes to member loudfan). Not only was such a concept redundant, it was ridiculous; why the hell does there need to be a dating show revolving around a farmer? But I will be damned, every single thing that needed to be right – casting, prize, host, supporting characters, challenges, eliminations – was right, resulting in a show that was at worst tolerable, at best a fresh new way to do a dating reality show. The rural setting didn’t seem like a hokey gimmick. In fact, Matt, said barnyard bachelor, convinced me that this is his world and the person he chooses had better to be strong enough to live among the sticks and hicks. His lifestyle, or at least farming in general, was the theme behind the challenges, like milking and stall mucking. And the elimination announcements are as creative as they usually get in CR shows, as grotesque as reaching into a cow to check for a fetus, as quiet as waiting for one of Matt’s friends to stitch the bootee’s name. The good things stayed the same, namely the personalities to make fun of, like the rancid, coddled Republican Josie, and the drama between the girls chasing Matt, in particular the war between Christa and eventual winner Brooke. The relationship didn’t last – of course – but that doesn’t mean this wasn’t a great, overlooked ride.

Best Host: Phil Keoghan, The Amazing Race

I still don't understand why Phil wasn't nominated for an Emmy beyond my "He Wasn't Recognizable Enough To Be A Co-Host For The Ceremonies" theory, which I still think is valid. Sure, Phil doesn't stay in touch with the teams, but he narrates the adventure for us, fills us in on the locations we'd never know about otherwise, and amps up the suspense at Pit Stops. Sure, his adventures with the Cholitas was exclusively shown online (CBS.com and YouTube), as well as spending time with his father. However, he still brings a sense of class to the show; going onto his fourteenth season, how many other hosts can make the same claim?

Honorable Mentions

Jon Kelly, The Mole: Yes, I realize there is a huge canyon that seperates the two prior hosts: Anderson Cooper, whose two seasons of work puts him on the Mt. Rushmore of reality hosts; and Ahmad Rashad, who was better off doing NBA Live and sticking his nose up Michael Jordan. While Kelly didn't come into his own right away, he eventually blossomed into a kick-ass host, especially when mockingly resorting to baby talk in the video-eyes task. Whether disrespecting Nicole or occasionally tormenting the players, Jon put together a damn good season for himself. Sadly, most people wound up seeing the likes of John Henson sell his stupid skunk spot out on freakin' Wipeout. And yes, I'm still bitter. Here's hoping Kelly gets more attention at his next gig.

Michael Ian Black, Reality Bites Back: granted, he doesn't look like the Probstian sadist from Total Drama Island, but MIB made his mark on Comedy Central's reality spoof. Black rattled off nonsense with a mostly straight face, while the players humiliated themselves by gorging themselves in "The Biggest Chubby" (the direct opposite of The Biggest Loser) or dodging bullets in "So You Think You Can Hunt?" The high point from Black came after "So You Think You Can Dive?," when ousted contestant Bert Kreischer stripped himself bare and proceeded to rub himself on Black, who tried to fend him off. Half the fun of a second season would be to bring Black back. Also, it would keep him away from those bozos Tim and Eric from Adult Swim.

Worst Host: Jeff Probst, Survivor

He may have been the first, but in my eyes, he's the least. This is a host that has zero problems giving misleading narration to kick off an episode. Tribal Council? It's one thing to lay into a losing tribe, but he went as far as shaming a group to pick a leader, something none of them wanted to do in the first place, and that ended up causing even more friction in the following days. He mancrushes more than anybody involved with Bromance. Essentially, Probst has become a parody of himself, and he was a bit of a joke to begin with. And for his performance, he got an Emmy, which he joked about wanting to wear around his season for the Tocantins season. I'd continue, but you'd wind up reading a few paragraphs worth of profanity, and I think I should nip it in the bud here.

PS: If I got any of the descriptions wrong, please feel free to correct me.

Speaking of Survivor-related ranting, I found another Show award I had hidden away.

Biggest Hoax Of A Theme: Fans Versus Favourites, Survivor: Micronesia

Look, Survivor's been getting increasingly hokey and fake-looking for several seasons now. I'm not going to deny that Jonathan's knee or Ravu's starvation or the dehydration in Guatemala was happening (to do that would be akin to, say, judging a tribe's worth based solely on performance in two challenges, not that Jiffy Probst would EVER do anything like that), but consider the evidence that the basic ideas behind the season had been done in advance: Conveniently, none of the Cook Islands cast had anything bad to say about the racial divide. After two seasons of not serving their intended purpose, the HIIs conveniently justified their inclusion in the game in Fiji by resulting in the boots of both Edgardo and Stacy. We had to listen to Amanda say the following odd statement about alliances to supposed uber-fan Todd in China: "You have to have one in this game... you have to". Now, either she's a non-fan who got stunt-cast, watched a few episodes, and then said that in order to show how much of a fan she supposedly is, in which case it's complete bullshit; or she's an actual fan who got cast properly, and had to explain it to Todd under the impression he's never watched the show before, in which case everything he said out there is complete bullshit. There's no way in hell one fan would say that remark in that tone of voice to another. And if I hadn't seen it almost happen on the Aussie version years previously, I would have said no tribe could ever have sucked so badly as Ulong or Ravu did. ...Not to mention a rumour going around that Gabon's Sugar was a hired actress, as opposed to an actress contestant.

But onto Micronesia. Firstly, since when were Parvati and The Idiot Currently Known As Fairplay ever fan "favourites" during their original seasons? I could understand Yau-Man and Cirie and Penner, but... these two? Seriously? Secondly, it was later revealed that several of the "Fans" were never actually Fans at all, and had been stunt-cast the same way that actual fans have been complaining about for years (right about now, I wish I had saved the webpage with that article). Which not only makes a mockery of the somewhat-decent concept, but also makes me wonder whether the "Fans" were deliberately cast as blandly as possible to try and give producers a mandate for stunt-casting in future seasons. Aside from that, there has to be a reason Parvati, Amanda, and Natalie insisted that Cirie try and stop Erik from winning that Survivor History challenge, instead of doing it themselves. And doesn't it strike anyone else as weird that we had no mention at all for the first fifteen seasons of how often people applied to be on the show, and then we had two in two consecutive reunion shows (Kathy in Micronesia, Gillian in Gabon), as if Peachy was whining "Look! We cast an actual fan! See? Right here!"?

I don't know, maybe I'm just reading things into where they aren't, but the show is clearly not as "real" to me as it was in those first four or five seasons.

-----

And onward, downward, and backward, to more People awards.

Best Judging Panel: Darren Hayes, Tina Arena, and Dicko, Australian Idol 6

With regular judges Kyle "All About Me, Me, ME!" Sandilands and Marcia "Even Less Sane Than Paula Abdul" Hines AWOL, Dicko needed two stand-in judges for AI's first ever international auditions in London. Two of the biggest Aussie names in Europe were enlisted, and history was made. In previous years, we would have had to listen to crap which made Loud Pushy Frank's letter to Team Guido back in TAR:AS sound coherent, but this time we got Darren and Tina mocking Paula Abdul and Vile Kyle, and Tina declaring that the notion that Big Notes Win Votes is total bullshit. Oh, and Dicko doing the Muppet Show dance which got him booted off of DWTS down here. Darren and Tina both returned to Australia to mentor and guest judge later on in the series, and proved that their awesomeness was not just a fluke. Can we get them full time this year? Please? I'll even buy the winner's album for once if I have to.

Worst Winner: Terri Munro, BB 2008

To recap: Throughout the final couple of weeks, 52-year-old Terri, the oldest housemate in Aussie BB history, tried to convince everyone that Travis -- who was going to help his family with the prizemoney if he won -- did not deserve to win because he would waste the money. Eventually, Terri won, and when asked by a newspaper the following day what she would spend her winnings on, she said plastic surgery, because TV made her look ugly. No, Terri, the fact that you're ugly made you look ugly. The fact that you were on TV made you look eight inches tall.


A Hunky Hunk o' Burnin' Love (aka Hottest Player [Male]): Hunter, Gladiators:

Yes, I know he's not actually a contestant, but... still. I have never seen an ass look so good in lycra. Thanks to the abysmal producer idea of making the Gladiators spout claptrap like "the Thunder clouds are approaching" and "you've just been Viper-ised" (ugh), we got to hear Hunter repeatedly say stuff along the lines of "when I get you in my sights, I never surrender". Well, if he's as geekily competent in the bedroom as he was on the show, I will gladly surrender. Mmmmm. Your runners-up?

Dallas Imbimbo, The Amazing Race 13: Yeah, I know. He constantly looks like he has a blocked nose. But unless there's a bunch of people I'm forgetting, 2008 was a bad year for hot guys in reality shows, at least in the ones I saw. And... well, I saw the nude photo that got leaked. 'Nuff said.

Charlie Herschel, Survivor: Gabon: So we all know about how he had that whole unrequited crush on Marcus. But out of all the Survivors in 2008, he was the real catch. Which is... really sorta depressing, come to think of it. And you gotta give credit to anyone who can rock facial hair. It's not easy to do. In a related sidenote, I freely admit to judging this category based on looks rather than personality. Though it was nice to finally see a Survivor contestant who actually looked happy to be there, for the first time since... Lydia?

Teale Jakubenko, Australian Idol 6: One word. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Best Guest Stars: John Keoghan, The Amazing Race 13 and Paula Taylor, The Amazing Race Asia 3 (tie)

Because... how can I not? Seriously, Phil's Dad lent a much needed touch of emotion to an otherwise fairly dull episode, and Paula (a TAR Asia 2 contestant) gave the first episode of TAR Asia 3 a dose of meta humour. Which was apparently needed in an episode which already had insect-eating, bus-washing, and dune-buggy racing. In any event, both of these two greeters made such a statement about the quality of TAR, where past contestants and loved ones aren't brought on every season to help out with some cheap gimmick, that I couldn't justify not giving either of them an award. But not Greeter Of The Year. That goes to a much more outstanding costume. (In case you hadn't guessed, the greeter is on the left.)

I need to get a move on to “People”:

Player Of The Year: Katee, So You Think You Can Dance 4

She wins the RTA because, in my opinion, she stood out prominently in a very good season of SYTYCD. She may not have danced better every single week, but she damn sure almost did. More impressive, I agree with the judges who noted that she looked at home with every single genre thrown her way – contemporary, latin, even the new pas de deux and Bollywood. And she had chemistry with every guy she partnered with. Yeah, I might be giving her this award partially because she’s cute. But you can’t deny the talent if you saw her dance to “No Air” or “Mercy.”

Honor Roll:

• Cirie, Survivor: Micronesia: Fans vs. Favorites: The woman with the Jedi mind tricks did the same damn thing again. Fault her for faltering at another challenge late in the game that could’ve cemented her million dollar check; the fact that she manipulated a second season may make her the Best. Survivor. Ever. Granted, there were a lot of other player pros on her season, so somebody had to step up. But the art of convincing others to do her bidding while she avoided the backlash, something she demonstrated on her time in Panama and probably was given to her in a deal with the devil, was on full display here, with added audacity. Getting her Couples Alliance to blindside Ozzy while he had the Hidden Immunity Idol was dangerous – and genius in the way Cirie orchestrated his ouster. Only she would've had the guts and the brains to pull that off. That was only topped by making Erik give the girls his Immunity Idol by making him feel bad – or, actually, by persuading the other girls that he would give them his idol if they made him feel bad. Her grand moves late in the game made up for her then-dubious decision to vote out Yau-Man, though she probably could’ve manipulated the likes of Jonathan and Ami just as exquisitely. Yo, President Obama; make Cirie your envoy to Iran. She’ll make that Ahmadinejad guy give up his nuclear secrets before even he knows it.
  
• Nick & Starr, The Amazing Race 13: Can’t say I like this duo; their “fuck the competition” vibe was always a turn-off, and Nick in particular was needlessly snarky and cutthroat. But there is one stat that is inescapable: They finished first on seven of their race’s 11 legs, most importantly the last one. Is that a record? With cruel efficiency and drive, they made TAR13 a decisive (and somewhat stultifying) rout.
  
• JabbaWockeeZ, ABDC: Just like with Katee on SYTYCD4, in an excellent premiere season full of talent, these guys from the West Coast were head and shoulders about the rest. They all danced well, but when it came to both concept and execution, these guys performed with more precision, imagination and flair. As many posters on TWoP said week after week, they killed it, even with something that seems out of their wheelhouse, such as “All That Jazz.”
  
• Sugar, Survivor: Gabon: She couldn’t make invisible her fingerprints on the blindsides she set into motion like Cirie, and she was way too emotional. But you can argue that she was as influential on Gabon as Cirie was on Micronesia. Her HII gave her enormous clout. And her flipping alliances, screwing Ace and Crystal in the process, made her the swing vote at TC. At the end, she made this season of Survivor into the way she wanted it: By giving “good person” Bob a spot in Final Tribal by screwing over Matty, the person she gave her HII to. Backstabbing people you had an alliance with: What could be more in line with the tradition of Survivor than that?

Player With The Greatest Influence Even Though He Left So Early: Gene Simmons, CA

I never saw his reality show, Family Jewels, but when I worked as a performance theater usher I heard that Simmons was an asshole when he toured with KISS – very hands-on, wanted to account for every penny, reaming people if they didn’t give him what he demanded. So I was half-cringing, half-intrigued by what he would bring to the table and what kind of imprint he would make on this “job interview.” I’ll never forget his Obama-like cool on the very first show: While both teams went crazy trying to think of ways to make money selling hot dogs on the street, Mr. Simmons, laid back in his office chair, shades on, calmly flips open his phone, calls his friend “Bob,” and asks him to come to the city and buy a hot dog for $5,000. And he says OK. And we all went, Of course! Why didn’t the other celebrities think of that before? Leave it to a makeup-clad bassist for an aged hard-rock group-turned-cutthroat businessman to truly “think outside the box” and use his rich celebrity friends just so he can win a contest. By violating the spirit of the tasks, the viewer was inundated with celebrity cameo after celebrity cameo (Alec Baldwin?! David Hyde Pierce?!) and dizzying amounts of money paying for horse carriage rides and Broadway tickets – all in the name of charity, of course. It was absolutely ridiculous and nothing relatable to the common man or the world of business on this planet … and yet this season had almost as much verve, swagger and excitement as the first civilian season. And it’s all due to a man who got fired two weeks later because he dragged Omarosa into the Boardroom when it should’ve been Nely Galan. Donald Trump was right in firing Simmons, but he owes him for bringing his show back from the dead.

Best Judging Panel: Darren Hayes, Tina Arena, and Dicko, Australian Idol 6

With regular judges Kyle "All About Me, Me, ME!" Sandilands and Marcia "Even Less Sane Than Paula Abdul" Hines AWOL, Dicko needed two stand-in judges for AI's first ever international auditions in London. Two of the biggest Aussie names in Europe were enlisted, and history was made. In previous years, we would have had to listen to crap which made Loud Pushy Frank's letter to Team Guido back in TAR:AS sound coherent, but this time we got Darren and Tina mocking Paula Abdul and Vile Kyle, and Tina declaring that the notion that Big Notes Win Votes is total bullshit. Oh, and Dicko doing the Muppet Show dance which got him booted off of DWTS down here. Darren and Tina both returned to Australia to mentor and guest judge later on in the series, and proved that their awesomeness was not just a fluke. Can we get them full time this year? Please? I'll even buy the winner's album for once if I have to.

Worst Winner: Terri Munro, BB 2008

To recap: Throughout the final couple of weeks, 52-year-old Terri, the oldest housemate in Aussie BB history, tried to convince everyone that Travis -- who was going to help his family with the prizemoney if he won -- did not deserve to win because he would waste the money. Eventually, Terri won, and when asked by a newspaper the following day what she would spend her winnings on, she said plastic surgery, because TV made her look ugly. No, Terri, the fact that you're ugly made you look ugly. The fact that you were on TV made you look eight inches tall.

Everybody Gets A Rita Day: Assorted Other Fuckwits This Wouldn't Be Complete Without

So there's a whole bunch of people who don't deserve awards but whom the 2008 Ritas would not be complete without, so here goes: Cosi from TBLA 2008 for thinking he was the Messiah when he was really just a very naughty boy; Rory from BB 2008 for thinking he was God's gift to women when even a woman with a record as patchy as Pamela Anderson wasn't interested (actually... give that to the entire cast); the trainers from TBLA for not knowing that working out until you literally faint is not good for you; Dannii Minogue for being an untalented famewhore who has no business judging on one reality show, let alone three; Kyle Sandilands for showing no sign of interest in the show he was hosting; and Nate & Jenn and Kelly & Christy for helping reinforce the image of Ugly American to the world, as if politicians lampooned by Tina Fey haven't done enough damage throughout the year.

Best Cast Member: Bob Crowley, Survivor: Gabon -- Earth's Last Eden

In the aftermath of Yau-Man Chan's early boot in Micronesia, we weren't expecting a second coming of him in Caucasian form. And unlike Yau Man, Bob didn't get love from the editors right away, as the cameras focused on the various headaches and underachievers in the game. But slowly and surely, Bob began to take command, peaking by creating two false immunity idols out of bits of tree mail packaging, both looking a lot better than Ozzy's attempt in the previous season. He began to pile up the immunity wins when he needed it the most. Granted, his worst moment came with tricking Randy with an idol, especially since Randy's "Operation Strongarm" had already guarenteed his ouster, and his playing the idol was overkill, but Bob saw his error when Sugar laughed herself sick. Speaking of Sugar; while Bob took criticism for not giving credit to Sugar for helping him win (he did it in an interview; he was a little overwhelmed at the reunion), I think Sugar wasn't anywhere near a genius as some think she was. Think of Dre as a white girl, and you get a sense of her gameplan. In the end, Bob pulled off a 5-3-0 win over Susie (who?) and Sugar, giving Survivor its first deserving and likable winner since Earl Cole. Oh, and in one episode, he made me root for him and Corrine. Corrine, for God's sake.

Honorable Mentions

Cirie Fields (Survivor: Micronesia -- Fans Vs. Favorites): Senor Audacity nailed it in his description. After Cirie's dust-up with Jonathan, she went back to being likable, and she was a big part of the women overtaking the men. Granted, most of the men got blindsided because they were dumb as rocks, but Cirie did bring her game back. Sadly, the departures of Kathy, Jonathan and James might have altered the game to the point where three players entered Day 38 instead of four, which came as a shock to Cirie, Amanda and Parvarti. And when Amanda won the final immunity challenge, she elected to dump Cirie, depriving the fans of a deserving winner, especially since Amanda's jury-appealing skills sucked donkeys. While it would still be a blast to see Cirie and her hubby do The Amazing Race, something tells me that she'll be planted on the couch for a long time.

Craig Silke (The Mole): Near the end of the season, fans were left with a tightly-wound soccer coach, a mook from Yonkers, a OBGYN likened to Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth (which was bullshit, even if her mother did agree with the assessment), and a jolly big guy with glasses. Seeing how the first four Moles weren't drama cases, it was painfully obvious that Craig was the Mole. He did bring a sense of humor to the game, not taking himself too seriously, not even when he had to look around Santiago, Chile, for the group's clothes clad only in his undies. In an interview, he mentioned that townspeople followed him around, calling him "pig," and he didn't lose his cool. Craig also threw players off the trail after he almost killed himself going up a mountain while carrying gold. But Craig's biggest moment took place in Argentina, when he maneuvered himself to be in charge of how players would travel for over five miles to add $10,000 to the pot. If they failed, Craig would get an exemption. He proceeded to assign the worst possible devices possible: stilts, scuba gear, a donkey that couldn't be ridden, and an unicycle. But the real coup de gras? Trying to force Paul and Nicole, who hated each other so much, into a llama costume. The group didn't even try to make the task, giving Craig a meaningless exemption. For indulging in wish fulfillment towards two of the bigger headaches in the show's all-too-brief history, Craig deserves our love.

Toni & Dallas Imbimbo (The Amazing Race 13): In the aftermath of Mark & Bill's elimination, I likened the remaining field to bickering teenagers, with the exception of the mother/son combo. These two were true to my assessment, avoiding the drama and quarrels the others were kicking up. While it took them nine legs to finally win a leg, they were consistently good throughout the race, not finishing below fourth after the second leg. As good as Nick & Starr were, it took them a few legs to truly get into the groove. Sadly, Dallas had a mental fart at the worst possible time, leaving money and passports in a cab, forcing his mother and himself to beg in a brave yet futile attempt to stay in the game. But even after their elimination, Toni was still proud of her boy. I can't say that they were the best team (Nick & Starr's record seven wins sees to that), Toni & Dallas made for a enjoyable and memorable time.

Bastard/Asshole Of The Year: Randy, S: G

Saying this guy creeps me out is an understatement. That this Vanderbilt grad-turned-videographer – what a way to use that engineering degree, Randy! (I shouldn’t be talking, neither am I) – was so honest about his misanthropy does not make him any more respectable, let alone likable. The red flag started flying when they had that party and he was boasting about being in control of the game. People say that all the time, but there was something about the way this prick said it that made me think, Boy, he really means it, doesn’t he? And the hating on Crystal and Sugar, the free-flowing profanity, and the way this middle-aged loser put his hair into a Mohawk and didn’t care how people thought of it – all of that wasn’t for his audition tape. At the reunion show, he was completely honest and unrepentant about what he is – lonely, full of hate and bitterness, and resolute in making other people miserable. It should be a tad troubling for Survivor that the person who loves this show so much that he applied about a dozen times, a man who truly revels in the it’s-either-you-or-me cutthroat nature of this social experiment, is someone who looks like he’s willing to kidnap a random girl off the street and torture her to death. I have to thank Randy, though; witnessing this angry troll has really made me resolve to go out and do something with my life. Thanks, you SOB – and if you ever come near me or the people I love, I will kill you.

Other Pure Trash:

• Piers Morgan, CA: Similar to Randy, the fact that this British tabloid gutter king deserved to win this season doesn’t reflect well on Donald Trump. But he did what Trump wanted him to do: succeed at all costs. Too bad he did it by going out of his way to bash Omarosa so much I started to feel sorry for her (a big no-no, dude); insulting his own teammates with nicknames (Lennox “Sleepyhead” Lewis) and jokes only he thinks are acceptable in civil company; and refusing to acknowledge the verbal abuse he has spewed with abandon. I would’ve accepted him eavesdropping on the women’s meeting and stealing their ideas if he weren’t such an arrogant, rude fuckhead. That’s why I’m still angry that Gene Simmons essentially fired himself. There was a blow-up on the men's side because Simmons froze out most of the other men as he was editing a commercial. He shut them down, Morgan included. I would have loved to see him continue to put the King Of British Yellow Journalism in his place.
  
• Gordon Ramsay, HK4: This son-of-a-bitch has a place on this list as long as he keeps soiling my TV with his overpriced assface. Yet another season of him yelling at poor, innocent new chefs just trying to get some approval from one who has made it. I continue to be baffled by the amount of adoration he gets. He’s verbally and physically abusive, he teaches nothing about the art of cooking on the show (which you would think he would get around to by the fourth fuckin’ season), he makes it all about him, and now there are reports he has cheated on his wife and defaulted on his loan. I am so over his “I’ve got 14 Michelin Stars so I know how to fuckin’ cook and that’s all that fuckin’ matters so you can go fuck off” schtick. Eat some salmonella peanut butter and die, dickhead.
  
• Nick, TAR13: Is he the worst ever on the show? I don’t know. But that shit he pulled by promising Andrew that he’d help him with the Roadblock in Brazil then totally leaving him to twist the wind was just as low as blocking a security checkpoint with your luggage cart (I still remember, Guidos). There is such a thing as winning with class, and a lot of teams have done that – even on this show! Nick, with his anchor for a teammate (although a very hot anchor), a smug demeanor and an inflated view of himself that completely dehumanized the other teams that competed against him and his sister, never showed that. I have a feeling, if he had to fill out an application, he would write down “self-absorption” as one of his strengths.
  
• Jeff Archuleta, American Idol 7: One look at the guy and you know he was a stage dad. But the assholiness that gushed out of his pores on Tuesdays and Wednesdays extended behind the camera. The father for runner-up David was an absolute monster, getting in the way of production and demeaning band members and even some of the other finalists, which is a totally unacceptable move. He finally was put in his place – that being in the audience – when he suggested/ordered his son to clip a line from “Beautiful Girls,” the Sean Kingston song that was a hit at the time, in his performance of “Stand By Me,” which meant Simon Fuller et al. had to cough up a lot of publishing rights money. Alongside the inevitable aging demographic and the accompanying slide into an interest in rock, this mistake of a man was the reason why David Archuleta lost to David Cook. Karma’s a bitch, but sometimes that bitch knows what she’s doing.

I'll probably think of some more people and come back later, but for now anybody I forgot sucks slightly less than the winners of my Worst [Thing] awards. And onto Moments. (I know I'm moving fast, I'll try and slow down for next year, I swear.)

Shark Jump Of The Year: Pammy Busts In, BB 2008

Down here, at least, Big Brother tried to make it seem as though everything happening was natural and not all that contrived. Even in 2002's disastrous Celebrity mini-season, which the show never truly recovered from, ratings-wise. In 2005, that all changed when a new showrunner took over, and it all became about turning the show into something which would make former Temptation Island contestants blush. But even that mistake was eventually almost rectified, until another new showrunner last year decided the one thing which would make the show survive would be Pamela Anderson's flotation devices. Yes, I'm serious. As bad as that was, she wasn't even staying in the house as had been advertised, instead spending her nights in a luxury hotel. Which is a shame, because the contestants last year were sleeping in "an orgy bed", as she herself put it. Actually... that's not so much a shame, because there are other Canucks famous for wearing bathing suits that I'd rather see doing the deed. Alex Despatie, anyone? But Pammy and her animal rights activism got the last laugh -- and a second Rita -- when she decided to go and protest against the way KFC procured their chicken. The problem? KFC were the sponsors of the show, and thus were the people paying her exorbitant appearance fee. Pammy, we know you've already got two "awards" of your own, so just write "Shark Jump Of The Year" on one, and "Product Placement Irony Moment Of The Year" on the other.

Best Twist: Housemate Hand Grenade, BB 2008

Haven't you always wished that people who got voted out got their revenge on the people who got rid of them? Imagine how much more fun some seasons of Survivor would be if, like, whoever gets voted out gets to disqualify someone from the next Immunity Challenge or something. In 2008, the BB producers decided to see what would happen, and each person evicted got to hoist a punishment on one or more of the people still left, for the entire duration of that person's stay in the house. Some of them were a little easier to accomplish than others -- wash the dishes by hand each day, be the last housemate to go to bed every night -- while others were downright nasty. One housemate had to clean both toilets every day, while in another case, everybody except for that week's chosen victim got a letter from their loved ones. And in the piece de resistance, the best one happened in the first couple of days. The housemates were let into the garden on the first night, but the house itself was locked and would remain so until the following morning, when everybody had to vote to evict one person, in front of their faces. Only then were the remaining housemated allowed to enter the house. But soon after they did so, they were told to watch a video, in which the evictee told one person to get out and stay out, banished to spend their time in the backyard, sleeping in a leaky VW Kombi, and using an outdoor shower and toilet. Harsh? Yes. Unfair? Yeah, considering the obvious target for the boot was a borderline racist, and there was an Asian housemate. Brilliant television? Fuck, yeah.

Worst Twist: The Warehouse, TBLA 2008

Oh, man, this sucked. Down here, we get the show six nights a week, and it's so repetitive you could watch maybe one episode a fortnight and still understand what's going on. To try and alleviate some of the dullness, the producers created a crappy little twist called The Warehouse. Basically, each week, the entire group of Losers would go to some warehouse, where there were different types of food on display. The previous week's Biggest Loser then got to decide which of the foods would comprise the majority of which team's diet, in addition to the usual basics. In addition to being unsafe (in the very first week [where the Losers chose together], they had to cart large amounts of unrefridgerated, unpackaged seafood back to the White House, our version of The Ranch), it was also rarely adhered to. The Warehouse disappeared without trace halfway through the season, and during the first half, the Red Team repeatedly broke the rules -- at one point, they were living entirely on raw food, and were not allowed to cook anything, but not only did they use food which wasn't allowed (canned, processed tuna in brine was amongst it), but they also had a barbecue. It sucked seventeen different kinds of ass. None of which was raw.

Best Task: Ignore The Obvious, BB 2008

Okay, so you've had several weeks of isolation in a tiny house with a bunch of people you don't particularly care about, and a voice is your ear that keeps telling you to come to some imaginary place called "The Diary Room". So, what would be the hardest thing for you to ignore? A pile of money on a table, with a sign marked "Free Cash"? A fireworks display? A marching band rampaging through the backyard? Your loved ones appearing on the house's closed-circuit TV screens? Well, the producers tried all of these in an absolutely brilliant task. Basically, the less you could ignore, the more you failed. Yeah, it broke the fourth wall, the other three, and the roof, but it was so unbelievably awesome I don't care.

Quitter Of The Year: Jason Castro, AI7

The finalist with the girly hippy hair had let it known for some time through his body language and coded words that he didn’t want to be there. So no one can convince me that he didn’t at least subconsciously flub his lyrics to “Mr. Tambourine Man” and half-ass his Marley-vized version of “I Shot The Sheriff.” And that convinces me he was mouthing “don’t vote”. Look, Muppet: I understand that the judges, even Paula, turned on you the past few weeks. But first of all, once you get to the finals, the judges’ opinions don’t matter, and many people stay on despite the pummeling that asshole panel gives some singers. And second of all, it all goes back to you know what you’re getting yourself into, especially now that this behemoth has been on for seven years. If you’re not going to play the game, if you’re not going to go out with a shred of dignity or class, or if you’re not going to do your best to give a musical “go fuck yourselves, panel” by singing your heart out (or at least by remembering the lines) and giving your fans reason to be angry over your ouster and your non-fans pause in thinking they may be voting out the wrong guy – if you’re not going to even try because you thought AI was going to be, ya know, different, you shouldn’t have been on the show in the first goddamn place. So go hit a bong with Michael Phelps or something, because I have no sympathy for you.

Pussy Of The Year: Chet, S: M: FVF

Like Castro, he didn’t have any more will to stay in the competition; unlike Kathy, he either was smart to wait until Tribal Council to tell his tribe mates to vote him out (thereby preserving his prize money, perhaps?) or was a bitch-ass for not doing the decent thing and quitting. From the start he came off as a pathetic stray cat of a man, too thin to withstand the ravages of 40 days out in the wild yet willing to go out with a subgroup of his allies and make their own hut because they didn't like the way they were being treated. When he was being a total wimp for not being able to get that key during the Immunity Challenge even I can understand dragging his ass around a track like Joel did. He then couldn’t go on because there was a fucking blister on his foot. Boo-hoo – James almost got his finger amputated! There have been other Castaways who have quit – Osten, G.C., the list can go on – but pageant king Chet had his own particularly irritating way of not being able to cope with living without modern trappings and making the people around him miserable because he was such a goddamn wuss.

Douchebag Of The Year: Robert, Bachelorette: DeAnna

I had high hopes for this guy when he made a dish for her at the first cotillion. But the self-absorbed pretentiousness slowly creeped out of his distracting unbuttoned shirt over the following weeks. He had this weird way of talking about how “deep” his “connection” with DeAnna was, when there was absolutely nothing coming from her that she felt the same way. The double elimination on the 2-on-1 was priceless: Robert (not Bob? Not Rob? You sure?) wanted a kiss on the lips but DeAnna, in one of her few redeeming moments on the show, would only peck his cheek. And when he took that Limo Ride To Loserville, of course he wouldn’t be sitting upright but slouching in a disgusting, douchebaggy way, shirt hanging open again, and letting just one (not two? Not three? You sure?) tear roll down his cheek while “poetically” talking about how he thought it was meant to be. Oh, get over yourself. You’re not even that good looking. In fact, you’re kinda fat. Like Blob. Blob. Blob!

I'm falling behind. I also missed somebody special for Honorable Mention for Best Cast Member.

Bill McFarlan (Greatest American Dog): Sure, the dogs were the real stars of GAD, but Bill stole the show. The oldest contestant at 62, Bill had the best relationship with his dog, a whip-smart eight-year-old Britney Spaniel named Star. While Star showed off some considerable skills, it was Bill who learned to roll with the punches. For the dance competition (yes, really), he opted for a rockabilly theme, dressing up for it and mugging for the judges. He had trouble with his photoshoot, as he had to portray Star as "stubborn," but his final product -- Star looking the other way from a leash -- drew praise from the judges. There was also the time Ron tol him about Tillman puking and farting in the pool. Bill almost died laughing. In the end, it was a combination of Star unable to get along with her charges in a puppy-herding mission, Bill relunctant to rush her in a stunt-related challenge, and some unbelievably shitty judging that kept Bill and Star from the final episode.

Best Winner: Nick & Starr Spangle, The Amazing Race 13

They won seven legs, became the first family team to win in a conventional race, and kept a half million bucks from being injected into Tina's face. And I can't remember Nick being that big of a douche, so they get the prize from me. Also: dressed-up Star at TARCon? HOT. Just sayin'.

Honorable Mentions

Bob Crowley (Survivor: Gabon -- Earth's Last Eden): He needed some luck for the win, as well as the jury's unbelievable hatred for Sugar, but he did work hard, becoming a chalenge monster near the end.

Mark Lambrecht (The Mole): Mark gets in under Senor Audacity's "You gotta be good if you won The Mole" rule of thumb. Sure, he was high-strung, and he made Patrick from the second season (anyone? anyone?) look chill by comparison in regards to journal handling. But he managed to hold off ten other players (nine if you don't count Victoria getting bought off with a bribe bigger than second-place money) to win $420,000, which is enough to keep his wife from working. While I do see that this isn't backwards and primative thinking, I do hope Mrs. Lambrecht has her resume handy, especially with the economy the way that it is these days.

I do think Star was kind of a hanger-on, but she is a babe. Got pictures of her? She didn't dress up as Princess Leia, did she?

I too am falling behind. But I got another installment out:

Bitch Of The Year: Kenley, PR4

While Project Runway has had its share of stuck-up tools, I wasn’t quite sure if any future contestant would match the arrogant insubordination of Santino or even the crazy two-facedness of Wendy. Well, make room for Kenley Collins, a Bettie Page ripoff who set the standard for new designer wackiness. It all starts with her voice, a nasal whine that turned into a witch’s cackle whenever the judges had even the slightest critique for her competitors’ pieces. She was equally immature when unable to take constructive criticism, even to the point of doing the unthinkable and calling out sage Tim Gunn. But what really takes the cake is her cruel mistreatment of her family near the end of the season. I know family can be difficult, and it’s possible they’re only saying things on camera to make it look like they are one happy family. But one can only surmise from Kenley’s smug and clueless behavior on the show that she didn’t really care for the people who cared for her the most. The fact that she seemed to gleefully revel in ignoring them is just uncalled for. This famewhore bitch was in public relations, for crissake; has she learned nothing?

Other Bitches Of The Year:

• Corinne, S: G: She gets on this list for telling Sugar during Final Tribal Council, with malice forethought, that she was crying crocodile tears for her late father. What I am surprised about are these revelations about her behavior at the Ponderosa, the place where the losers go for sequester, and her comments after the show was over. Turns out she is Randy with a vagina (maybe) – mean, petty, and proud of it. But at least Randy doesn’t have an inflated image of himself. Most laughable is she says things that are directly contradicted by videotape evidence: The chemistry of the Fang 5 opposing alliance; her treatment of Crystal at the Ponderosa; being mature about people who outlasted her even though her question at Final Tribal was making fifth-grade insults to the Finalists; boasting about doing work around camp when you told your brother you didn’t. And she justifies her vile sense of entitlement by saying she’s keeping it real. You’re a cruel waste of God’s creation, you hateful shrew, get thee off of my TV forever.
  
• Amber, BATG5: Another reason the last season of Beauty And The Geek ran off the rails is that the powers that be decided to cast beauties whose goal was only money, not the opportunity to learn anything about how the other half lives. The most nakedly ambitious of these was Amber, a venomous whore who telegraphed her intentions from Day One – to little success, for she was the first chick eliminated. She tried her best to push the geeks’ buttons, however; Amber trying to make out with an unimpressed Tommy made me sick. And her staircase standoff with Joe (not to mention that spat with fellow beauty Randi) was exactly the kind of stuff we thought BATG wouldn’t stoop to. Good riddance to a woman who was there for all the wrong reasons.
  
• Dawn Freis, HCTN: Let us not forget the manipulative, passive-aggressive woman that passed for a villain in this otherwise sunny CR show. She claimed she became a flight attendant just so she can be close to husband Cody, a pilot. Well, it turns out that not only does it look like they are now not married, but they may have faked a marriage just to get on the show. If that allegation is true, it would only be fitting for someone as fake as she was to try and pull that garbage. The mousy way she goaded Cody into doing or not doing things to make her happy gave us a voyeur’s view of a dysfunctional relationship. And her reaction to being denied a chance to be one of the last two couples in the competition – something about thinking they had a deep relationship with the Holmes couple, who then decided to select the Moutras’s, whom she wouldn’t believe would be friends with them after the show – was possibly the most immature comment in a series that blissfully had little of that. Add her cattiness and the feeling you get that she was above it all and didn’t want to get her hands dirty or her mind too involved in anything when she has her Cody around, and you almost forget to focus on the good parts of Here Come The Newlyweds, which is basically everything else that doesn’t include Dawn Freis.
  
• DeAnna, B: D: Maybe I’ve got her figured out all wrong; it’s possible that she was so narrowly focused on finding the love of her life that she didn’t care that she came off charmless, even bossy. Or, maybe she is always charmless and bossy. One thing that irked me about the season, particularly at the “After The Final Rose” reunion show, is that DeAnna, who got this show because she was dumped by Brad Womack, was in turn passing the pain and suffering down to a new set of moon-eyed men. Did she realize that the victim had become the perpetrator? I don’t expect Chris Harrison, who otherwise seems to be a nice guy, to have the insight to ask that question, but the fact that she didn’t reflect her experiences of being on both sides of this speed dating gone haywire reinforces my impression of her as a too-intense, controlling harpy.

Okay, a runner-up for Biggest Hoax Of A Theme, and then I swear I'm done with Shows. Probably.

"The Toughest Race Ever", The Amazing Race Asia 3

TAR Asia's first season had numerous quitters, including one team who quit two consecutive roadblocks and still survived. TAR Asia's second season was deemed "too easy" and "poorly planned" by many fans, but the teams were still whining about how hard it was. So, what's the logical thing to do? Ratchet up the intensity even further and brand the season "The Toughest Race Ever", apparently. In the least surprising story arc of 2008, three of the seven eliminated teams were booted via penalties after quitting tasks, including both Miss Universe 2005 Natalie Glebova (who was allowed to take her four-hour penalty without even talking to her partner about it) and fourth-place finishers and perennial amblers A.D. and Fuzzie (who had basically had a final-three berth handed to them when then-third-place team (and eventual winners) Sam and Vince also quit the final-four Roadblock in Oman). Normally, that would be bad enough. But other tasks deemed worthy of being included in The Toughest Race Ever were eating fortune cookies, finding handbags in a market, and winning at those claw games every mall has somewhere. Oh, and taking pre-bagged goldfish to an aquarium. In a taxi.

Most Improved Theme Nights And Guest Judges: Australian Idol

Themes in previous years: Disco. '60s. A culturally-irrelevant Motown. Themes in 2008: Abba. The Rolling Stones. Michael Jackson. Guest judges/mentors in previous years: None. Guest judges/mentors in 2008: Cyndi Lauper. INXS. Jermaine Jackson. Chris Isaak. Do I really need to say that much more?

Don't worry about order, raceguy. The greatest thing about the RTA's is that we keep it loosey-goosey!

Terrible Twosome Of The Year: Angela and Tania, Crowned

I still think pageants, unless some of them eventually get naked later on in their careers or even do hard-core porn, are creepy. But skanky mother-daughter duo Angela and Tania disgraced the concept of pageantry. Their hearts – Angela’s is hidden under all those rolls of fat – were never in this; they just wanted to extend their 15 minutes after Tania somehow reached the semi-finals of the inaugural season of American Idol and auditioned for the second season of AI’s forerunner, Popstars. Seeing that Tania’s career is in a lull, so to speak, they have found their way to make everyone on Earth know that they were on this planet. If a showrunner is desperate enough, they’ll look to this show and see that Tania and Angela (especially the latter, although I blame the former for allowing her mom to exploit whatever fame she has achieved for her own ego) were insulting people to their faces, single- (or double-) handedly dividing the house into good and evil (guess which one these two bitches were in, and if you don’t know, they’ll proudly tell you), and acting like a bunch of slutty, broke-down, classless hags who somehow thought they were the most ladylike of the whole bunch. These “women” were ugly, inside and out. And how pathetic were they running off stage after they were ordered by Barker to perform de-sashing hara-kiri? As pathetic as seeing Tenia using the toilet and not washing her hands was disgusting. Fuckin’ slob and her brainless, hanger-on spawn.

Most Surprising Contestant: Adam Corolla, Dancing With The Stars 6

I and I think all of us assume the worst whenever the cast list is revealed (like season 8’s – Denise Richards needs to be on my TV even longer?). But it’s surprising, even heartening, to see that the contestants are at least trying. And so I have to personally apologize to Adam Corolla, co-host of The Man Show and inheritor of 25% of Howard Stern’s audience after he left free radio, for believing he was going to embarrass himself, partner Julianne Hough, the show and everyone watching. No, he wasn’t the greatest. But either because he wants to turn a new leaf or put forth a new wholesome image of himself (last year he starred in The Hammer, a small, Rocky-like indie film that, shockingly, most critics liked a lot), you had to give the guy credit for sticking his neck out and giving a sincere effort. And turns out he has some hidden talents; he did part of his paso doble on a unicycle! Moreover, he was very sweet, aw-sweet, to Hough. And his speech after his reunion dance? Obama-worthy.

Rivalry Of The Year/Why Does Everybody Hate Her So Much?/Why Does Everybody Love Him So Much?: Piers vs. Omarosa, C: A

When you have two mean famewhores on the same show, eventually they’re going to call each other out and tear each other's throat. Thank goodness; seeing this battle between a bitch and a bastard whose reputations precede them was a large reason why this season was so enjoyable. But I was firmly on her side from the first task. Morgan showed he was nothing but a bully who didn’t mind shitting on the spirit of the rules and hurting the feelings of anyone on the opposing team or even his own team. And sometimes he didn’t do it just to win that week’s task; it became obvious many times that he just wanted to hurt people. On the other hand, Omarosa seems to have learned from her behavior and the resulting public reaction to her rudeness and incompetence on the first season of The Apprentice. I don’t know why people on the boards still hated her; I thought she toned it down and was downright civil and even helpful at times. The only person she was a bitch to was Morgan, and I think we can all agree he deserved it. And so I was upset that Evil won over Good; they say people love a story of redemption, yet they had no sympathy for a woman who tried to turn a new leaf and only stood up for herself in the face of unrelenting verbal abuse by a tabloid hack.

Ditzy “Cougar” Of The Year: Cloris Leachman, Dancing With The Stars 7

Look, I have a grandmother who’s 82. She’s not only alive but living life, she can move without too much assistance, she’s a little scatterbrained in the head, but that doesn’t stop her from going to the Indian casino in town once a week. I love her, even if she drives me crazy. And so I’m not going to bash Ms. Leachman too much for putting on some dancin’ duds and trying to cut a rug. It's just that she's a few fries short of a Happy Meal. It all started with her first dance with partner Corky Ballas, a foxtrot that, like every dance after, would wipe her out and throw her into senior conniption fits. And while I appreciate her breaking down the fourth wall as she was talking to sideline reporter Samantha Harris – her reaching out and grabbing the card that showed Harris the total and saying, “They are so stupid around here” is very funny – her incessant talking was a sign of things to come, namely that she wouldn't shut up. Ballas decided to go for broke and make fools of himself and his partner in order to win sympathy votes, but that just made Leachman look more desperate and, sad to say, old. She had overstayed her welcome by at least two weeks, thus exposing us and her to the embarrassment of a hip-hop routine. But she was game, though; her exit was classy and yes, she became an example that age is nothing but a state of mind. Now please, ma’am, stop being a ham.

Worst Judge Of The Year: Paula Abdul, AI7

The slurring and the going-on makes one think that she is the one that’s really 82 years old. The final straw for many was when she critiqued Jason Castro for a song he didn’t even perform yet. Abdul later explained that she got flustered after a late format change and that, yes, they do sometimes begin to form general impressions of a contestant by watching and listening to their dress rehearsals. On one hand I kind of feel that the producers of AI kind of left Abdul out to dry; by keeping secret the fact that the live performance isn’t the only one the judges see, they opened the show up to rumors and conspiracy theories that the judges are told what to say, and even that the whole competition is scripted. But yet if this were Simon or even Randy, we would’ve only thought that this was the fault of someone behind the camera. With her free-range thought associations and her drunken slurring that seemed to accelerate this season, it took no leap of faith to think that they could’ve kept up the ruse if it wasn’t for her. So I agree with Jimmy Kimmel, who joked that the last name of new judge Kara DioGuardi is Italian for “Paula’s replacement.”

Okay, so my laptop's charger cable snapped and I have like, hardly any battery left. So I'll give these awards now, and insert the descriptions later when I get more time.

Least Valuable Behind The Scenes Crew Member: Lynne Spiegel Spillman

If you haven't heard of her, she does all the casting for CBS' big three reality shows. And if you haven't noticed, her casting appears to consist mostly of keeping her eyes open at local bars and spas. I've got no problems with California teams getting cast, given the state has, like, a quarter of your country's population, but at least get all the other states done too. In TAR alone, there are 16 states -- Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, North Carolina, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming -- that haven't given us a single contestant yet! And stop choosing people who LOOK like they've been recruited, dammit! (I will never put Lynne's casting better than this flowchart from Sucks.)

Most Necessary New Behind The Scenes Job: Location Pronunciation Expert

Because... seriously. Probst can't pronounce Gabon correctly (it's Ga-BONN, not Ga-BONE), despite working with it's government. Phil can't pronounce the name of Europe's largest city correctly, even though two greeters there pronounce it the right way (it's Moss-COE, not Moss-COW). And Allan Wu? Well... CHIANG Mai, not CHUNG Mai; HWAY, not HOY for HUE; ThaiLAND, not ThaiLEND; OMAHN, not OMEN for OMAN... the list goes on. Someone really needs to do something about this.

Call off the hounds, for I have returned. I've just been a wee bit distracted, is all.

Biggest Asshole: Greg Halstead, The Real World: Hollywood

A quick history lesson: back in 2000, Bunim-Murray Productions decided to rip themselves off by gathering potential 28 cast members for The Real World and Road Rules to mingle and get judged, just like in Making The Band. Among them was Lori, who had earned a spot by beating out others on MTV.com. At week's end, she got cast for RW: Back To New York.

Cut to today. This time, MTV.com opened up a spot on the cast for the latest season, with no obstacles in between, and it went to Greg. Now, I don't keep up with this shit, so I don't know if the voters knew he was a sociopath and they looked to wreck the show (see: Malakar, Sanjaya) or whether it was a happy accident, but he went down as one of the biggest shitheels in RW history . . . and brother, that's saying something. Regarding others as "peasants," playing petty pranks and denying his involvement, and basically acting the asshole. Also, he had little use for the made-for-TV "job" with the improv people, and he ditched that on several occasions before he was fired and let go from the show. Unless Joey, the spectacular fifty-car wreck of a guy, Greg will more than likely never get the message that his shit does stink, and we've probably not seen the last of him.

Honorable Mentions

John "Johnny Bananas" Devenanzio & Kenny Santucci (Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Island): Kenny acting like a he-man woman hater was no surprise. Often, I kept "shipping" him with Evan, the worst thing to come out of Canada since Celine Dion, since they both schemed to lose the women on their teams. But going into this season, Johnny had been relatively cool, at least until this season. With the show's new format (which I explained earlier in this thread), Johnny took to hating women with relish, perhaps figuring that being a nice guy in the past didn't work for him. It got so bad, I wound up rooting for Evelyn, a butch lesbian who had driven me up a wall in past seasons. Sadly, Beavis & Butthead -- along with Evelyn and wee Derrick -- wound up winning $75,000 in gold apiece. Their only problem now? Explaining their new relationship to Evan.

Joel Anderson (Survivor: Micronesia -- Fans Vs. Favorites): I'm ashamed to say that I'm editing this post because I forgot all about Mongo. Why "Mongo"? First of all, I'm a bit of an attention whore (see also: "Shiiablo"). Secondly, Joel was a mack truck of a man who was easily steered by others to do their dirty work. And he didn't like scrawny Chet either. I don't know why those two were bound together in the "Chase Though Everything But Broken Bottles" challenge, but Joel had zero concern for Chet's well-being, to the point where I expected the rope to be tied to a rib cage and a few scraggly hairs. In the end, he was blindsided hard, and he still didn't get the whole "Outwit" thing. The biggest pity? That Cirie didn't dress in a red bellman's uniform and hand him a lit stick of dynamite disguised as a voting pen.

Biggest Bitch: Corrine Kaplan, Survivor: Gabon

Dear Lord. Her little speech to Sugar on Day 39 would have been enough. Most other people would have gotten up, asked Corrine to invoke their dead father again, then tried to strangle her. Sugar merely flipped her off. My point? That was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to Corrine. Susie makes the mistake of telling Corrine that she had considered voting her out? Susie had to die. While Randy had a few humanizing moments (which I hope to elaborate upon later), Corrine was just a straight-up bitch. And like I said earlier in this thread, when Bob needed her help selling one of his fake idols, I actually rooted for her . . . and that spoke volumes of how awesome Bob was. Corrine? Needed to be slapped. Hard. And often.

Anderson Cooper Award (Best Host Of The Year): Cat Deeley, So You Think You Can Dance 4

Normally Tom Bergeron wins this, and he’s turned in yet another job the past two seasons of DWTS by undercutting the cheese with just enough tart to bring in the hipsters who won’t admit to watching. But I’ve wanted a reason to shake things up, and one little moment on SYTYCD4 did the trick. There was a “danger zone” announcement where Twitch was in the bottom two and Twitch, somewhat immaturely, lost his shit. Deeley immediately came to him, bent down and put her arms around her, while saying something akin to, “It’s not over.” I saw her described on TWoP as a “den mother” and that label cannot be more appropriate. We saw her relationship with her “babies,” and our almost-beatific view of Deeley was reflected, in that one sweet, maternal gesture. I don’t think a host has ever been more compassionate (“that’s OK”) and yet as firm (“chin up”) ever in their hosting career than she was with Twitch right there. She is just about a saint – a leggy saint. When the Mount Rushmore of Reality Television Hosts is created, Deeley’s incredibly-gorgeous face should be on it.

Worst Hosts Of The Year (tie): Joey Fatone, CC and Billy Ray Cyrus, Nashville Star 6

Ryan Seacrest is plenty bad because of the way stupid questions he asks and the stupid way he sucks up to celebrities on his talk show and red carpet spots while “trashing” Cowell. But he has ease in front of the camera, and that is something neither Fatone nor Cyrus has at all. The three-ring version of DWTS was MC’ed by Fatone, who obviously is holding on to fame by the tips of his fingers, and he was terrible – rushed teleprompter readings interspersed with memorized questions mouthed to the contestants robotically. For all his pizzazz on display when he was on DWTS4, I’m shocked that he looked like a deer in the headlights when asked to shepherd his own show. Can’t say the bar was raised that high for another DWTS alum-turned-reality show host, the father of Miley. He too looked and sounded canned when he was obviously reciting stuff he was told to remember. Moreover, Cyrus stood with a weird lean to the right, as if his left leg fell asleep. Hosting, especially live, is harder than many people think. But take a look at Deeley, or Bergeron, or even Jeff Probst: Listen to the people competing, pay attention to the stage managers and the teleprompter and the guys in your IFB, and try to think off the top of your head once in a while. That way you look like a proper reality show host should: engaged, charismatic, empathetic, and alive. (I will also give a critique for Drew Lachey, a guy whose overrated sideline reporting on DWTS5 in the fall of 2007 paved the way for all to see him read his lines flatly in a monotone voice and otherwise fail to elevate the superfluous Dance War in a way Bergeron does on DWTS.)

Biggest Trainwreck (Candid Reality): Joey Kover (The Real World: Hollywood)

Bunim-Murray Productions also had an eye for the emotionally and mentally damaged, but they hit the mother lode with Joey. Sure, he seemed to be a health-conscious mook, but it turned out that alcohol brought out the beast in him. One nighttime tantrum scared the shit out of his roomies, as well as the viewing audience. He would leave the house to go into rehab, but not before he revealed that he had also done cocaine during his stay. While I understand why BMP wouldn't want to jump in, you'd think they would've made an exception. Eventually, he came back, found it too difficult to stay because 1. He was in Hollywood and 2. It was a city with a two-drink minimum, and he left for good, coming back for the cast's final improv performance. While I do home Joey stays on the wagon (and keeps the hell away from the Challenges), watching him wasted was a horrifying experience.

Biggest Trainwreck (Competitive, Single): Crystal Cox (Survivor: Gabon)

Let me get this out of the way: Crystal was good at taking a baton, running 100 meters, then handing it off. If you've saw the American men's and women's teams in 2008, you'll note that it's a bit of a lost art. But apparently, Crystal wasn't up for 36 days of grueling Survivor-type work. It wasn't just the challenges which she stunk up . . . she caused shit at camp, she moped around, and quite frankly, watching Randy take joy in her misery was fun for me. But the challenges was where she couldn't excel at all, which made some (okay, me) wonder if she had bronzed her gold medal. The low point was after a basket-shooting challenge, when she rushed in for the slam dunk . . . and biffed that as well. Oh, and she went into third person at least once, so that's enough reason to hate her ass.

Biggest Trainwreck (Competitive Duo): Andrew Lappitt & Dan Honig (The Amazing Race 13)

How did these guys finish the race, nobody will ever know. It did help that Mark & Bill had a brain fart, Terrance & Sarah elected not to bail out of a meat-eating Fast Forward despite Terrance being a vegetarian, Dallas doomed himself and his mother by leaving their money and passports in a Moscow cab, and the rest of the field was also too dim to survive (lookin' at you, Divorcees). But these boys were a rarity, combining the lack of humor of Gary & Dave (okay, just Gary) and the overall misery heaped out by Marshall & Lance. They made so many miscues, and yet it took a poor cabbie to keep him from the million bucks, an event that might have broken the show permanently.

The best example of their ineptitude was during the ninth leg. In the previous episode, they had left their shoes at a Detour, so they had to blow their money at the Kazakhstan airport on new sneakers, but not before getting there in paper slippers. They fly to Moscow with the other teams, but then get stuck with a lost cabbie. Eventually, they get to the Detour, which is a choice between marching with the local army and serving borscht. Part of both tasks involves getting into uniform and wrapping the feet up in a certain way before putting on the boots. Andrew can't hack the wrapping for the marching, so they opt for the borscht . . . but not before switching to their regular clothes. Once they get to that task, they realized they fucked up. So . . . back to the changing place, where they get the wrapping done and elect to march. Andrew does okay with the instructions. Dan, on the other hand, has the marching equivalent of Elaine Benes' "little kicks." And away they go, back to the soldiers waiting for their borscht. To review: they wound up swapping tasks three different times, which has to at least tie a record. My mind is trying not to remember such an "accomplishment" so I don't have a breakdown. Dan manages to complete the flour-delivering Roadblock without breaking out into a spastic fit. But it turns out that the cab ride to the Pit Stop was much more than their figurative wallets could handle, to the point where Dan offers his new shoes to complete payment, which the cabbie refuses. The guy ends up bankrupting the boys, they go to the mat, they're the last team to arrive . . . and it was a non-elimination leg. I'm guessing Phil wanted to eliminate them to put them out of their misery, but he couldn't. Pity.

And to answer Senor Audacity . . . a pic of Starr with Dallas. Feel free to poke through my album of TARCon . . . the lady was indeed hot that night.

Thanks for the pictures, Lantern7. Goddamn she looks hot. Hottest contestant ever at a TARCon?

Onto "Moments":

Moment Of The Year/Dumbass Move Of The Year: Erik gives up his Immunity Idol, S: M: FVF

In a season filled with audacious ambushes and stupefying twists, this one takes the cake. Slowly and subtly, the trio of Cirie, Amanda and Parvati bumped off Ozzie, James, and Alexis in ways as complicated as Survivor has ever seen. It didn't really matter whether Erik or Natalie was going next because they knew they were going to eliminate them both in all due time. That all-encompassing power, the resignation in the face of control asserted so effortlessly, prompted Natalie to say fuck it all and ask Cirie if she was next. When Cirie, the master of puppets in this operation, said she was, Natalie immediately threw her alliance-mate Erik under the bus. But how can they oust him when he’s a man … er, when he will probably win the next Immunity Challenge? And I still can’t believe it, but somehow, all four gang up on poor ice cream scooper Erik, his fragile psyche and his still-forming manhood until, at Tribal Council, he confesses that he feels pangs of guilt over going back on his word – yo Erik, that’s called playing the game – stands up, and just gives Natalie his hard-won Idol. No, the titters from the Jury, let alone from the production crew behind the cameras, didn’t make him pause, he just gave it to her in an effort to be redeemed in the eyes of the ladies who, obviously, went back on their word and voted his ass out. Sucker! I still can’t shake the image of Erik looking back after he’s been snuffed and seeing all four women wave goodbye to him and smirk in a way that was as sexy as Erik said it was. Maybe he harbors feelings of being sexually dominated by four ladies who think he’s a dumbass. (Can’t say I completely blame him.) Hope it was all worth it, Erik, though the guess here is they’re too busy still laughing their asses off to give you their forgiveness.

Other Indelible Moments:

• Blindsiding Ozzy at Tribal Council, S: M: FVF: What culminated in the ouster of Erik really began with the almost-as-surreal elimination of self-satisfied dick Ozzy. He was coming off the high of humiliating Eliza with his shitty fake HII while keeping the real one in his figurative back pocket. Jason was the next designated target, but the devious Cirie had other plans: She approached Alexis, Jason, Natalie, and Parvati about blindsiding the high-and-mighty Ozzy. Ballsy enough that it just might work, the genius of the plan was not in the not telling the others (especially outlier Amanda, who was canoodling with Ozzy) but with acting like they were dead set on voting out Jason. It all came together at Tribal. The manipulative Mark Burnett raised Ozzy’s hopes so high and Jason’s so low when the vote was 4-1 Jason. But then the tide turned, exasperating everyone, especially Eliza and her ridiculous “O” face that stretched out further and further with each Ozzy vote. And when the comeback was complete, the volcanic eruption of shock, relief or accomplishment (depending on who you were) electrified one of the most delicious TC’s in the show’s history. The cherry on top was the bitterness Ozzy didn’t care to disguise in his sendoff speech: “And to whoever it was in my alliance that voted the other way, right now, I pretty much hate you. So screw you, basically.”
  
• Joel dragging Chet through the course, S: M: FVF: The show has been shameless in promoting nudity and violence; the new standard for the latter was reached, though somewhat hilariously, by an incredibly brutal Reward Challenge. A pair for the two tribes are tied together and plopped into an obstacle course. One team has a flag; the other team’s objective is to get that flag. The final pair consisted of fireman/Hulk Joel and wimpy pageant coach Chet trying to hunt down lashed hotties Parvati and Eliza. It had been established that Joel didn’t like Chet, yet for reasons I don’t remember, they’re stuck together. So when Chet loses his footing, Joel, who needs to capture the flag to win food, just drags Chet behind him like cans behind a limo with a “Just Married” sign on the back windshield. And he dragged him for much of the race, dude. You’ve got to be powerful to do that. And I’m surprised Chet was still in one piece after it was over and they lost; people lose limbs being dragged on the ground. Their little conversation at the end was priceless:
  
  Chet: I hit my head back there.
  
  Joel: I don’t care.
  
  Chet: I know.
  
• Jason gives Eliza a fake Hidden Immunity Idol, S: M: FVF: Poor Eliza. For the second time she is a lone wolf who could see the writing on the wall. Her only alliance mate is Jason, and he gives her the HII he found on Exile Island. Except that it’s not the HII; it’s one created by Ozzy to fool Jason. And it looks like someone you make in first-grade art class. Eliza, Buddha bless her, sees through it. But that’s the thing with Survivor: The deception the show creates around the contestants makes them so paranoid that they will believe or disbelieve anything. A person who still follows this show could look at that … thing and be partially convinced that that is real. (Trust me, something as shitty-looking as that will be a Hidden Immunity Idol in a future season.) With nothing to lose accept public humiliation, Eliza humors Jason, herself, and all of America by playing it at TC. After Probst confirms Eliza’s suspicions about the veracity of that Idol, Ozzy laments about the creation that Probst threw into the fire: “What? I worked on that thing for hours!”
  
• The decision, AI7: The winner’s announcement gets me every time. But I want to recognize this one because it finished a very well-run finale – straightforward with a lot less filler than in previous years. David Cook was so emotional after his win, and his generosity showed through when he gathered the finalists around him behind the judges' table as he sang Coronation Song, “Time Of My Life.” The moment that sticks with me the most is when his younger brother Andrew mouthed, “He’s my brother” into the camera. This may be the show that destroys America, but how can you not like a scene like that?

While I try to think up best and worst moments . . .

Best Animal Performer: (tie) Galaxy and Star (Greatest American Dog)

These two pooches -- a mixed breed and a Brittany Spaniel -- were at the head of the canine class. Galaxy was the show's top athlete, intensely trained by owner/partner JD. The duo won two Dog Bones and three Best In Show titles. The main highlight for me? The dog dance challenge, where JD elected to go with hip-hop, and the duo excelled at mastering the genre, going completely kinetic on the job. Some might argue that they deserved Best In Show over Laurie and Andrew's ragtime performance.

Star was the top student, the prized "kid" of old-timer Bill. Her only weakness was having to deal with puppies as part of a maze challenge, when she didn't want a thing to do with them. She did, however, stand out in challenges where she had to dance in a rockabilly style (with Bill hamming it up), pose as a stubborn dog for a still picture (something Bill didn't think she could do), and overcome a stumble on a balance beam to become only one of two dogs to successfully cross. And with most of her feats coming after suffering unexplained bite marks in the second episode. In a perfect world, Star and Galaxy would have battled it out for the top prize. Instead, the judges eliminated both owners and dogs prematurely, tainting the show.

Honorable Mentions

Andrew (Greatest American Dog): I didn't notice this Maltese until halfway through the show. His main highlight was standing still while an elephant "charged" towards him, which showed guts from the little bugger. The high comedy came with Andrew being too attached to his "mommy" Laurie. When the owners swapped dogs in preparation for a challenge, Andrew managed to run away from JD and find Laurie. Remembering JD squeaking out "Andrew?" in a high-pitched voice? Good times.

Meaty (Rob & Big): Nowadays, Rob Dyrdek's prized Bulldog has to fight the younger and cuter Beefy for screen time and attention on Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory. But on Rob & Big, Meaty managed to finagle his way onto packages of dry dog food from a company owned by Dick Van Patten, despite not being the least bit trained and disciplined. Meaty also had his own My Super Sweet 16-esque party; thrown by Rob, the shindig was massive, and it brought his father and grandfather into the spotlight. Most of the time, Meaty was seen either lying down, occasionally snapping, or riding his skateboard. It doesn't sound like much, but coming from a Bulldog, it's fun to watch.

Tillman (Greatest American Dog): One of the running themes early on in Rob & Big was Rob trying to train Meaty to ride a skateboard. While Meaty did pick it up, he will never reach the skill level of Tillman, a Bulldog that can be seen on Youtube skateboarding, snowboarding and surfing. Tillman was the comic relief dog; after getting bit by the rude Elvis, owner Ron declared that Tillman was "a farter, not a fighter." The biggest highlight came during a challenge where the owners had to get their dogs' attention away from some cooked meat. Tillman sniffed his meat . . . and sniffed . . . and sniffed. As everybody else laughed, Ron begged his dog to turn to him, offering to get two skateboards. After Tillman turned to Ron, the owner flashed a big smile. Tillman lasted only four episodes, long enough to make an impression on viewers. He was last seen along with Tyson, a fellow skateboarding Bulldog, on a Tournament of Roses float. They were frantically moving their boards up and down the float, as "Who Let The Dogs Out?" played in a loop. While I don't hate the winner Presley, I do have to point out that at least Tillman is getting work.

Best Canadian Reality Show: Dragon's Den.

It's a simple premise, really. Entrepreneurs from across Canada come to Toronto and pitch their ideas to a panel of potential investors (including, among others, a marketing genius, a dot-com millionaire, and the founder of a prominent chain of Canadian fast-food restaurants). And while the entrepreneurs ranged from the ingenius (including water-filled tubes for weight training designed by a professional wrestler, retractible golf cleats, and natural-looking hair extensions that slip on in less than a second) to the delusional (including reusable pizza boxes, a ridiculous game involving throwing balls from a sling at your waist by shaking your hips, and one woman who honestly expected picture books about her dog to sell millions of copies), the real fun came from when the "dragons" would fight over (and for) the ideas they liked. Definitely made for great television.

Best Canadian Reality Show Host: Andrew Younghusband (Canada's Worst Driver 4 / Canada's Worst Handyman 3)

He's funny, he's charming, and he's got just the right amount of snark. But most importantly, he actually seems to want the contestants on his shows to succeed. He wants them to drive that car through the obstacle course cleanly. He wants them to put that radiator box together properly. He's clearly empathetic when they screw up. And unlike a lot of American hosts (I'm lookin' at you, Probst!), he does it without picking favourites, or pitting the contestants against each other. Another selling point is the way he goes through all the obstacles on CWD himself before the contestants do. I don't think anyone else can say that, can they?

BBC America shows a British version of "Dragons Den" and I have become truly fascinated by it. If the Canadian version is anywhere as good - and it sounds to me as though it is - I'd love to see it in the US as well.

I love Andrew! I watch these shows just for him. Well - also to see people royally mess up, but mainly for Andrew

Fight Of The Year: The Kitchen Confrontation, Girlicious

Another reason I believe Girlicious was the Best Competitive Reality Show Of The Year was how everybody interacted with each other. There weren’t many fights on the show, but this was the most illustrative – and the funniest – I saw all year. It stemmed from a dance Challenge where the Girlicious-to-bes were paired with a male dancer and told by employer Robin Antin to dance. And when the creator of the Pussycat Dolls tells you to dance, and you’re with a guy, you dance like a ho because that’s what you saw on TV. One of them, Chrystina, won the Challenge and couldn’t be told to “hang up her boa” that week. The girl who came in second, Charlye, did not writhe on the floor and let her man commit frottage on her, and openly bitched about it after the Challenge. Jenna, whom everyone who watched the show knew had an inability to keep her mouth shut when she should, heard that and ratted Charlye out to Chrystina, who then invited a catfight with that time-tested gauntlet-thrower, “If you got somethin’ to say, say it to my face!”

Tiffanie, who was at Charyle’s side when she went on her rant, not only took up the challenge but prepared herself for it, slipping on a hoodie as if she was putting on armor before a battle. She marches into enemy territory where, Buddha bless her and her supernatural power of being articulate while pissed off, rips new ones into Chrystina and Jenna. Anybody new to the show could see this fight and get a feel of the personalities of each of the girls and where they stand in relation to one another: Tiffanie, in her entertaining best, repeating “What’s out of line!!!” and “You suck!!!” like she's squeezing off rounds from her semi-automatic; Jenna, the source of the drama who ultimately shirks away in the face of Tiff's relentless verbal assault; even Jamie, blissfully staying away from it all and yet taking it all in like she was watching this through the TV like we were. This is not your boring, cookie-cutter bleep-and-toss-fest that nearly all other (forgive me) CR twatfights have become. Seriously, you need to watch this because it’s so damn funny. On repeat viewings, in fact, I’m picking up on small things that make me giggle even more, namely Jenna defending herself while eating a big Cup O’Noodles, and Natalie, an innocent bystander, trying to calm Tiffanie down by holding out a very large plastic fork.

Grossest Funniest Scene Of The Year: The girls reach into a cow’s rectum to see if they’re eliminated, Farmer Wants A Wife

Elimination ceremonies have never been as creative as they were on FWAW. Each of them had a basis (albeit of varying clarity) in the rural life of Matt the “farmer." Some of them were slow yet quaint, like a neighbor stitching the eliminated’s name; some were grand and cheesy, such as when the winner’s name appeared on a banner trailing a crop duster. But I doubt you’ll find a way to tell someone to hit the road in a way both gross and unique as when the last five bachelorettes were greeted with a cow. Four of them are pregnant – and how do farmers know a cow is pregnant? You put on an arm-length glove and reach in its ass, silly! The jump cuts of the girls closing their eyes, pursing their lips and screaming was at times drop-dead funny (couldn’t find the clip, but this crazy-ass vlog from the CW affiliate in Little Rock, Ark. has, like, two seconds of it. It's the first minute of her thingy.) Matt was using the excuse of, “Well, I’m a farmer, and this is what farmers have to learn to do” to have some good fun at the girls’ expense, and it resulted in one of the most underrated scenes in 2008 Reality TV.

Grossest Grossest Scene Of The Year: “A pig’s vagina!!!”: Shot At Love 2

The Soup’s Joel McHale giving Tila Tequila his show’s Entertainer Of The Year award while wearing a hazmat suit and using tongs to hand her the award accurately sums up many people’s assessment of her, um, hygiene. Such conclusions were justified when she decided to resurrect the dead spirit of Fear Factor for one of the strangest and most disgusting things in a long time. Ms. Nguyen divided her suitors by gender and made them drink combinations of things, like canola oil and mustard, till they vomited. When the girls “won,” she told them that the girl who would win alone time with Tila would be the fastest girl to eat … well, the clip when she said it is now in reality television lore, endlessly repeated on shows like The Soup. The resulting competition, with bi-curious chick after bi-curious chick suffering from what is referred to in the world of competitive eating as “reversals,” was chuckle-worthy the first couple hurls, then got tedious before you realize this is one manipulative bitch who wants to see people suffer before she dumps them.

As someone who has actually assisted in the birth of a few farm animals, I feel compelled to point out that if one is looking for a fetus, one doesn't reach into the rectum. That won't help.