Please tell me you are watching: The Real World/Road Rules
Challenge: The DUEL on MTV.
This is reality television at its best.
I abhor the actual reality shows that this competition program draws its
contestants from, but when they come together to battle it out for money in
ridiculous games I can’t click away.
Here is the basic premise for all of you non-believers. A group of twenty (and
sometimes thirty) something’s come together for several weeks of challenges
that involve anything from weird variations on normal sports…to climbing and
jumping off of increasingly more ridiculous contraptions.
As an example, right now I’m watching them push each other around in a human
game of curling. Except they are sitting on ice blocks and pushing each other
around a hockey rink…in Speedos and bikinis. Crazy, I know.
And in-between all of that they all live together in one big house and it’s
like a college frat party 24/7 with unlimited amounts of booze. You can guess
the kinds of things that happen next.
The thing that makes it so compelling, is the same stuff that makes it so
ridiculous. The fact that these people use these shows as their way to hold
onto the 15 minutes of fame that ran out 5 years ago. The petty drama and
fights that erupt over the simplest things and how they permeate the entire
house. And of course the challenges that are so nuts and so crazy that you
can’t understand why anyone would waste their time in them, especially when you
find out each person who “wins” generally walks away with only about
10-20 thousand dollars after taxes and splitting it with other winners.
Couldn’t these people just go on an episode of wheel of fortune and make the
same money? I guess not. Plus, it wouldn’t be nearly as fun as watching them
risk frostbite playing human curling. Do yourself a favor and check it out.
Like what I had to
say? Hate it so much you can feel it in the very fiber of your being? I’d love
to hear from you. You can contact me here: tomhoeler@gmail.com with
all your comments, critiques, hugs, stomach jabs, and kicks to the head.