Had Me A Blast

Since next week is officially the start of Decent Quality Television and so the end of the much maligned season of Terrible Summer Television, I thought I’d look back on the Season That Was and pick out a few instances of Television That I Really Enjoyed over the last couple of months.

Yesterday’s post garnered me an invitation to join the American Idol Bloggers network. I like to think that said invitation was issued after they read my spirited defence of their favourite show against the sacrilegious element amongst Australian television editors and network programming executives, rather than due to a high ranking in the results of a Google search. (Please, let me maintain my delusion.)

Unfortunately, I’ve had to decline the Bloggers’ kind offer, not only because US Idol is far from being the main focus of this blog, but due to the lag between screenings in the States and here. It would only increase my frustration to be in regular communion with people who would have seen the next six episodes already. There’s no way there wouldn’t be spoilers on a minute to minute basis. And it’s difficult enough trying to remain insulated from the results of Reality TV in this era of the internet. I have to shut my eyes when I find links for the ‘Television’ list in the sidebar, there.

On three occasions so far, I have been singularly unsuccessful in shutting my eyes on time. The first was the series of Survivor where Aras won. I stopped watching, I was so disillusioned. I had no opinion about Aras one way or the other, so I wasn’t especially interested in seeing anyone get their come-uppance if they were only going to be defeated by him. Cirie was robbed, I tell you, robbed.

It was a different case about a month ago when I inadvertently spied a photo of the smiling Linz siblings on the Amazing Race website. I was happy they won—although I was initially barracking for the Gaghan family. I really wanted to see the Weaver family not win, because despite their constant accusations that the other teams were horrible to them, they managed to slip in a lot of unprovoked savagery towards the other teams themselves. I don’t think I’ve seen an entire family who is so completely lacking in self-awareness before, to say nothing of their total abdication of responsibility for their behaviour towards other living human beings. And to constantly be asking ‘Jesus Lord’ for assistance and ‘wisdom’ (!!) for things like finding the entrance to a stadium, just makes a mockery of faith as anything other than a justification for complete self-absorption.

Q: Ever wondered where God is in moments of humanitarian disaster?

A: He’s helping God-bothering Reality TV contestants get to the next round of the competition.

Another thing I discovered while trying not to look at the Amazing Race website was that another three seasons had already been made while we in Australia were watching The Amazing Race 8. Now that’s just ridiculous.

I also have to report that I know who’s won So You Think You Can Dance? I’ll keep watching because I love the dancing, but I do feel as though something is lost because the suspense of the uncertain outcome is just not there anymore. Dang!