Andrew Bullock on reality TV, US-style

My eyes, my eyes!

America worries me sometimes, and I’m a self-professed Americanophile. I love chocolate chip pancakes with bacon; I love Captain & Tennille; I love words like ‘trash’ (rubbish), ‘pants’ (trousers) and ‘cilantro’ (basil). I love their comedy television and their drama television. I do NOT like their reality television. And when I watch it, I sigh for America.

This Saturday evening I spent the night at home. A friend came over to hang out. We hadn’t seen each other for a few weeks, and so needed to catch up. TLC (the channel, not the band) was on my TV in the background. This was a mistake, as it consequently took over.

At the end of the evening, after my friend had left and I’d stayed on my sofa for a further two hours watching a back-to-back marathon of Cyber Stalkers, I turned my TV off. However, when turning it back on on Sunday morning, my Sky box was still on TLC. This then lead me to watching more American reality programming, and being late for breakfast with my mother and step-father. When returning home from my day, TLC was still on. I couldn’t seem to switch channels. The shows were so morbidly compelling that I continued to watch into the early hours of Monday morning!

Take Extreme Cheapskates, for example. One of the two episodes I watched followed Steffanie, an air hostess, who decided it was a good idea to appear on the show to brag about how she saves money by taking left-over meals from the flights she works on. Not only this, but she explained to the eager viewer that if you take four small plane pillows and stuff them into a regular sized pillowcase, you effectively have one large pillow. In short, she steals from work. Surely she’s now saving the pennies because she has since been sacked by the TLC-watching chief of Detroit Air.

“I sigh for America”

This story ends up with her getting married in the Alabama unclaimed baggage centre for less than $400.

Then there was Sex Sent Me To The ER, which told multiple heartwarming tales in one episode. One was the story of the couple who decided it was time to consummate their relationship. The girlfriend invited the boyfriend back to her flat to make sweet love, and also introduce him to her jack russell terrier. This was not a cute jack russell like the one from Frasier. This one was obsessed with its owner; mid-coitus, the gentleman is bitten on the back of his neck, by the dog, potentially contracting rabies. Sex sent him to the ER.

Then came the story of the newlyweds who had spent the afternoon experimenting with a ‘sex chair’, only for them to eventually require a visit to hospital. The most disturbing thing about this story was that A) the parents of both newlyweds were present at the ER, and B) the doctor telling the story had decided it was a good idea to play himself in the dramatic reconstruction. There’s less one PhD on his rumpus room wall.

Anyway, it turned out the newlywed woman was not in searing agony due to the sex chair experiment – she was actually five months pregnant, despite only being married to her husband for a couple of weeks. You can’t make this stuff up (can you?). Sex sent her to the ER.

Don’t get me started on Eskimos Go Wild In San Diego.

Andrew’s blog can be read at drewjbullock.wordpress.com

Follow me: @andrewjbullock