Wooooowww....

I just saw that there's going to be a Flavor of Love 3. Now, don't get me wrong, because I love me some Flav, but even I think this may be taking it a bit far. I became totally obsessed with the first season of Flavor of Love, unable to look away like a bad trainwreck gaper. I even managed to drag Troy down with me into the morass. I mean, the sheer ridiculousness of watching women fight over a man wearing a viking helmet...awesome.

Second season: also highly entertaining, even though a lot of the girls seemed to much more conscious of their on-camera personae. I Love New York? Eh. Not so much. Granted, "New York" was easily the crazier than all the other b*tches on both seasons of FoL combined, and she made for some excellent drama, but I hated her. In fact, I hated her enough that I couldn't have cared less if she found true love or not. I still sort of watched her show, but somehow watching big burly grown-ass men cry like little girls was more than I could really handle. Where did they find these guys? I did take kind of a perverse glee in the fact that she got dumped at the end in the most humiliating and public manner possible. Heehee. I know, I'm going to hell. I also saw (during the commercials for the FoL3 casting special, of course) a commercial for I Love NY2, coming this October. I don't think I'm going to waste my time on this at all.

Oh, and I almost forgot about Charm School. *Sigh* Against my better judgment, I watched that one too. It was somewhat admirable in its premise of self-improvement. But really, c'mon. The only reason anyone was watching was to see more catfights. And since when is Mo'Nique, star of such hits as Phat Girlz, considered the arbiter of taste and class? But hey, kudos to VH1 for strip-mining the Flavor Flav franchise and extracting every single penny possible. On a side note, Comedy Central had a Roast of Flavor Flav last week that was actually pretty funny, if only for its relentless bashing of Carrot Top, who I didn't even realize was even still alive (wow, what happened to his face?).

So all of this got me thinking about just how much reality garbage is out there right now, especially on basic cable. I've realized that most of the shows come in one of two varieties: celebrity or competition. And I'm assuming that they're all rip-offs or iterations of some of the most successful versions, Project Runway and hmmm, I guess The Osbournes?

So now we have producers scrambling to dig up every half-ass quasi-celebrity has-been (preferably with a history of "outrageous" or "controversial" behavior, give them their own show, throw in as many obstacles as they can engineer, and then let the trainwreck unfold in front of the cameras. OR, they have some sort of competition to become the next "star" of the station's chosen genre, i.e Next Food Network Star or Design Star on HGTV. Just today, I stumbled across "Skating's Next Star" on WE. I kid you not. It's hosted by Kristi Yamaguchi (who I instantly lost almost all respect for) and predictably, features a gaggle of figure skating washouts who compete before a panel of skating celebrity judges (all Olympic medalists, no less). The prize is a moderate wad of cash, a feature article in some ice skating magazine, and management. I'll confess, being the junkie that I am, I watched a couple episodes. It was bad. Almost unwatchable, even for me.

Some of the other reality nonsense that is currently on (most of which I have only seen commercials for):

American Princess - a bunch of American women go to England and compete to earn some sort of princess-y title. I'm assuming that a lot of it involves etiquette and decorum. No, I'm not making this up.

The Two Coreys - Yes, that's right. Corey Haim living with Corey Feldman (and his new wife), trying to recapture their glory days.

Scott Baio is 45 and Single - fairly self-explanatory; Chachi trying to figure out out why he has commitment issues.

Mission: Man Band - A bunch of washed up dudes from 90s boy bands forms their own new 'supergroup,' again, trying to regain former glory. I watched one episode and one of the dudes is the guy from Color Me Badd who kind of looked like George Michael, except that he's gained like, 100 lbs. since then. I actually didn't recognize him and spent most of the episode trying to figure out who the hell he was.

The Pick-Up Artist - OK, this one, I watch and kind of enjoy. Granted, the main guy's name is "Mystery," (ridiculous) and he's usually wearing a giant fuzzy hat and/or goggles on his head (even more ridiculous), but the goal of helping a bunch of geeky guys build their confidence with women is actually kind of admirable. I was initially worried that they would basically be encouraging the geeks to be as amoral as possible, and crushing the ones that fail, but it actually seems to fairly positive so far.

I'm sure there are more. But my IQ has dropped enough points already this summer.