missmediajunkie

I've finally caught up with the most recent season of "Project Runway" that wrapped up last week. Now that all shouting has died down, I wanted to weigh in on one of the most dramatic seasons yet. I've written about "Project Runway" before, and emphasized that my interest in the show isn't really so much about the show as it is the chance to see artists at work. This season highlighted another aspect that I also find appealing: the struggle to judge creative work.

Early in the season I was worried that the competition was going to be overshadowed by the "Mean Girls" re-enactment being played out by several of the contestants, which pitted one designer with less than impressive technical skills, Michael Costello, against several of the more aggressive designers, particularly Ivy Higa and Gretchen Jones. Michael kept winning challenges week after week and was turned into a pariah because his rivals couldn't understand what the judges were after a good designer rather than a good tailor. This lead to no end of drama, which I generally despise. If I wanted to watch people being catty and machinating to screw over one another, I'd watch "Survivor."

However, as the season rolled on, the judges proved time and again that they were not after good television, but good design. I fully admit that I don't have the training or the eye to tell which contestants were better than others after a certain point in the game, so I generally found the eliminations unpredictable. However, I knew that if the producers wanted to keep the tension high, Ivy would not have been eliminated in the tenth week and a designer with a big personality like Casanova would have lasted longer than eight rounds. It feels like a stroke of luck that the two designers with the most emotionally charged personal stories, Michael Costello and Mondo Guerra, made it so close to the end.

I didn't manage to avoid the spoilers about the eventual winner of this round of "Project Runway," because of the storm of controversy that followed in its wake. For those of you who haven't heard the results yet, you may want to avert your eyes now: Gretchen Jones beat the audience favorite Mondo Guerra to take the top prize. Everyone has been weighing in vehemently for and against the decision, but there's no denying that this was an outcome that caught a lot of people by surprise, me included. This has nothing to do with the relative quality of the work presented by the two designers, but because Gretchen's win went against all the unspoken rules of dramatic television that I had unconsciously internalized and applied to the show.

Gretchen was a far less charismatic television presence, difficult to sympathize with, and was set up as an antagonist figure in several of the earlier episodes, including a team challenge where she was called out by mentor Tim Gunn for bullying the other designers. Mondo, a more reticent, less self-assured designer was far easier to root for, especially after he made "Project Runway" history by revealing to the judges and the audience that he was HIV positive in the tenth week. This isn't the first time the show has elevated designers with difficult personalities. Jeffrey Sebelia and Irina Shabayeva come to mind. However, those designers consistently turned out quality work that was bold and eye-catching. Gretchen won with a collection that seemed very staid and conservative compared to Mondo's.

I honestly have no idea whose clothes were better from a design standpoint, but the "Project Runway" judges always emphasized the importance of taking risks and embracing a personal vision. With no clear winner and faced with a deadlocked panel, more interesting points started coming up in the discussion, like which designer's work best fit the direction that American fashion was currently heading in, and the importance of the aspirational versus the practical. It was one of the most interesting debates on the show in some time, and I wish we could have heard more of it. My pet theory is that Mondo lost points for having a style somewhat similar to the last "Runway" winner, Seth Aaron Henderson, which made Gretchen's collection look like a fresh departure by default.

Whatever the reasoning, I'm glad that "Runway" remained a design competition instead of a popularity contest and the judges weren't afraid of a choice they must have known would come as a shocker to a good chunk of the audience. It's fitting that just as the negative drama was deflated, the positive feel-good ending was given the boot too. They're two sides of the same coin, and the show's avoidance of these tactics has gone a long way towards maintaining the legitimacy of the competition.

Here's to the winner, Gretchen Jones, and to many more "Runway" seasons to come.

I was going to blog on the premiere of "Undercovers," which is a fun piece of romantic fluff, but then I stayed up to see Joaquin Phoenix's much-promoted return to David Letterman's show, and I feel compelled to add my two cents.

First, it was a relief to see Phoenix drop the act last night - gone were the beard, the sunglasses, and the mumbling. I'd read a few reviews of the new film at the center of the latest media scrum, "I'm Still Here," that questioned whether the whole rapper persona he'd adopted last year was an act or whether Phoenix had really gone off the deep end. Just about everyone wanted it to be an act, me included, though the saga of the actor apparently self-destructing over the course of the last two years was entertaining in a rubber-necking sort of way. And a grand total of nobody was surprised when co-conspirator Casey Affleck finally spilled the beans.

Letterman claimed that he knew Phoenix's new persona was false and played along during the actor's first appearance on "The Late Show." I'd have been inclined to agree eighteen months ago, but I started having doubts when "I'm Still Here" started prepping for its theatrical release and Phoenix still hadn't come clean about duping his audience. It takes serious dedication to go to those kinds of extremes for any kind of performance, so I have to respect him for putting aside two years of his life and risking his career to take on the challenge. However, I'm still not sure what he was trying to accomplish with the whole charade.


According to last night's interview, Phoenix and Affleck wanted to explore the nature of celebrity and its relationship with the media and the audience. They figured the best way to do this would be to turn Phoenix into a Lindsay Lohan-type walking disaster by staging an elaborate fake disintegration of his career. I can see how the concept has merit, and there are clear precedents for similar stunts from comedians like Andy Kaufman and Sacha Baron Cohen. Heck, Stephen Colbert will be playing Stephen Colbert in front of a U.S. House committee hearing on illegal immigrant farm workers today. And the gullibility of the media is always a fun target.

But in the case of Phoenix and Affleck, I'm not sure I get the joke. By all accounts "I'm Still Here," which Affleck directed, is a fake documentary following Joaquin Phoenix's attempts to start a recording career as a rap artist, in the same vein as "Borat" or "Bruno." Various events like a brawl at a concert were staged with friends, and mixed in with unscripted, unrehearsed material like the Letterman interview. But since the film is still playing it straight, and meant to fuel further speculation about Phoenix's hijinks, it doesn't seem to be the end result of the project. So what is? The media reaction? The follow-up Letterman interview?

I don't think the filmmakers themselves had a clear idea of what they wanted to accomplish, and the execution of the whole scheme left much to be desired. Most of the "I'm Still Here" reviewers were either left repulsed by Phoenix's false persona or else puzzled as to its authenticity. If Phoenix and Affleck were trying to turn the tables on the media and expose its weaknesses, they have yet to succeed. The focus of the film wasn't on the portrayal of Phoenix by the media, but on Phoenix's eccentricities. Now that the hoax has been revealed, there's no ambiguity left to draw curious audiences. And it's hard to be critical of the media for its behavior when they were being so obviously baited.

Sacha Baron Cohen's guerrilla comedy was brilliant because it got people to drop their guard and react in ways that revealed hidden attitudes and hypocracies. "I'm Still Here" only got the media to shine a spotlight and invite others to gawk and speculate. There were hardly any of the usual snide tabloid insinuations you often get with Britney Spears or Paris Hilton. In fact, there was actually very little coverage of Phoenix that I remember, and much of it was various film bloggers hoping that whatever the actor was going through, that he'd come out all right. I don't think that anybody bought the act entirely, which probably contributed to the limited coverage.

I wonder if Phoenix would have found more success if he'd left off some of the more extreme changes to his appearance, like the ZZ Top beard, that signaled that something was up. Or if he'd recruited a more tempting target for the cameras, like Mandy Moore or Hilary Duff or the pop princess of you choice, to stage a more familiar kind of celebrity meltdown. Joaquin Phoenix claimed that the whole idea came from watching reality television and the skewed portrayals of people that it regularly presented as reality. Though he tried his hardest to get the media to skew his actions into something outrageous, in the end it feels like Phoenix did most of the skewing himself. And in the process, he made everyone who expressed genuine sympathy for him feel like a twit.

In any case, it's good to have Phoenix back. And I think we can all agree that David Letterman delivering a comedic smackdown of the whole affair was satisfying catharsis for everybody.

Ray Bradbury's work was such an influence on my formative years, and missed so many chances to see him over the years, I still can't believe I was in that panel, three rows from the front, surrounded by other fans who loved him just as much as I did. He came with his biographer, Steve Weller, to promote a new book, "Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews." Weller did most of the talking out of necessity, as Bradbury is wheelchair bound, a stroke survivor, blind in one eye, and every question had to be simplified to its basics and whispered directly into his right ear. Every precaution was made by those assisting to make the experience as easy on him as possible. Nonetheless Bradbury spoke articulately, though haltingly, and was very aware and responsive.

A quick video introduction showed Weller at Bradbury's home, discussing the highlights of his life and career. The panel was more or less the same thing, with Weller interviewing Bradbury on various topics, often prompting him to tell certain anecdotes. The answers sometimes came slowly, but they came: He believes man should return to the moon and set our sights on Mars, as this is a path for humans to live forever. He considers himself a Zen Buddhist. He wished he'd spent more time with Bo Derek, who he once encountered on a train. He grew up loving comics, especially Prince Valiant. His current favorite is Mutts. He was partly responsible for the genesis of "The Twilight Zone," and provided Rod Serling with reading material. He doesn't like digital books or the Internet, and once told the president of Yahoo to take a hike. He loves libraries. He has never driven a car, but during a visit to NASA he drove the Mars Rover and was presented with a Martian driver's license. If he could travel back to one particular moment in his life, he'd pick all of them.

Bradbury was wonderful to listen to, by turns cantankerous and joyful. There was still a lot of fire in the man, and he claimed that he was simply a twelve-year-old boy who had never grown up. He'll turn ninety in roughly a month, and there will be various local events and retrospectives to celebrate his work and achievements. Yet he refuses to rest on his laurels and is still working on new material - poetry, essays, and of course more fiction. He promises a new book of collected short stories in the near future. Film adaptations of his work are still being made, including a recent one based on "Chrysalis." One funny factoid that emerged is that Mel Gibson owns the rights to adapt "Farenheit 451," and since he's in so much hot water right now, we shouldn't expect a new film version anytime soon.

And just as impressive as the man was his audience. I've staffed a lot of bookstore author events and I've never seen a room as courteous, as respectful, and yet so obviously full of adoration for an author. I heard a fe pre-show grumbles about bad experiences at past events, but there were no cranks or cynical jerks in the crowd. Everyone who got up to ask a question did so with great restraint and consideration for Bradbury's physical state. Several expressed their gratitude and admiration. And at the end of the panel, after a massive standing ovation, everyone spontaneously started singing "Happy Birthday" to him. I wasn't sure at first if he could hear us, but then I saw the look on his face, it was clear that he did. When we were finished, he thanked us all, and told us to "get out of here."

After the panel, a book signing was scheduled. I was one of the lucky ones who managed to get a wristband that secured you a place in the signing line, distributed that morning by lottery. Originally I wasn't planning to go for any autographs because of the wait times involved, but when the moment came, I got in line. Bradbury was wheeled in, and made it through about a dozen signatures before he had to stop, visibly wearing out toward the end. I wasn't anywhere close to the front of the line, nor was anyone who attended the panel, but I got lots of good photos and heard several wonderful stories from the other people in line with me, who had all been inspired by Bradbury's work. I was happy to be there and wasn't disappointed at all.

By then it was Saturday evening, and my Comic-Con experience was rapidly approaching its denouement, with only one event left that I wanted to attend: the "Mythbusters" panel in Room 6BCF. This meant getting back in another very long line, and I was worried that this was going to turn into another disastrous Ballroom 20 experience. However, the wait wasn't nearly as bad as I thought and a friend who showed up nearly half an hour after I did still got into the room for the panel. During the wait, I also got calls and texts from firends who were queued up for the Marvel film panel over at Hall H, to tell me about the stabbing. There was some worry that the police were going to shut everything down and cancel the remaining programming that night, and my friends opted not to wait around and find out. We didn't learn until later that the altercation was far less serious than people were reporting, and the film panels were only delayed by about forty-five minutes.

I made it into Room 6BCF just in time for the panel that immediately preceded "Mythbusters," an action show called "The Human Target." I've only seen the pilot, and like "Leverage" is strikes me as a straightforward action program that doesn't quite fit the mood of Comic-Con. The main character, a man named Christopher Chance (alas, no relation to the Chrestomanci), who catches bad guys by switching places with their intended victims. Chance is purportedly based on a comic book character, also known as "The Human Target," so I guess the show has more justification for being at a comic-book convention than some of the others. I ended up in the back of the room and missed the introductory clip package, but was in my seat by the time they brought out the guests. Producer Matthew Miller was on the panel, along with actors Mark Valley, Chi McBride, and Jackie Earle Haley.

They actually had some major news for us, specifically that they were adding two female cast members to the previously all-male team, including Indira Varma from "Rome" as a new boss-lady authority figure. The other will be a younger twenty-something, whose actress is yet unknown. Less encouraging was the announcement that FOX is moving "Human Target" to Friday nights, where struggling shows are traditionally sent to expire. The panelists tried to shrug off the move, citing "The X-Files" as a program that had thrived on Fridays. Funny how no one remembers that "The X-Files" didn't hit its stride in the ratings until FOX moved it to Sundays. I felt a little bad for the show's creator because a good portion of the questions were about guest star possibilities and the actors' other work rather than the show itself. Chi McBride has been on a lot of other programs like "Pushing Daisies" and "Boston Public." Jackie Earle Haley, of course, is best known as Rorschach from "Watchmen."

Also, while the panel was going on, the convention staff were doing their best to cram as many people as possible into the seats for "Mythbusters." There was a steady influx of attendees into the room during the entire presentation which must have been an awful distraction. And after it concluded, almost no one got up to leave. I'm not very familiar with "Human Target," but I thought it had potential and I like all the actors involved. The cast and crew clearly appreciate their fans. Jackie Earle Haley called a cosplayer made up as his character from the show to the front of the room for special kudos. Mark Valley thanked his fans in attendance for their support in an internet campaign to get him cast as Captain America. For the record, I think Mark Valley would make an excellent Captain America!

I can't say I was too sad to see them go, because next up on the stage was a familiar robot skeleton by the name of Geoff Peterson, sent down to San Diego by Craig Ferguson to introduce the "Mythbusters."

It was a great panel, very simple and very fun. They put the five cast members, Jamie Hyneman, Adam Savage, Tory Belleci, Grant Imahara, and Kari Byron up at the front of the room with a moderator and just let them talk. It was Kari's first visit to Comic-Con, which meant that this was the first time the entire cast had made the trip. The show has been on for over seven years now, but the Mythbusters themselves all came across as very down to earth and still seem to be getting used to the fame. Adam described geeking out when meeting Guillermo Del Toro in the parking lot, only to be geeked over himself and being invited to the director's man cave. Grant, currently planning for the impending robot uprising, has been dubbed the Keith Richards of robotics, which he chooses to take as a compliment. Jamie was bright red throughout most of the panel, clearly not used to all of the attention. And ladies, Tory is available.

There were a couple of announcements. Edited-down versions of older "Mythbusters" episodes with new "how-to" segments aimed at the junior-high set will be shown on the Science Channel in an after-school slot, hosted by Kari, as part of a federal education initiative. The show is apparently very popular with educators. And we can expect "Mythbusters" to be around for a long time to come, because the cast's contracts have been renewed for a whopping seven more years. Jamie promised that they aren't even close to running out of myths to test, thanks to all the material generated by the Internet. Adam also announced the winner of the yearly Comic-Con contest to identify Adam while he was in costume on the Exhibition Room floor. This year he was dressed as a Stormtrooper, a member of the famous 501st, and the winner was awarded an exclusive "Mythbusters" themed iPad which the audience ooohed and aaahed over.

I enjoyed the behind-the-scenes stories most. The cast builds and creates nearly everything we see on the show themselves, with very little help. They are constantly sending their insurance carrier into conniptions, though they have a good liaison who used to work for "Jackass" and "Fear Factor" to help them negotiate around tough spots. Kari, who took a brief leave from the show last season after the birth of her daughter, actually put off having kids thinking that she would wait until after the show ended. Except the show didn't end and isn't going to for the foreseeable future. Lots of ideas for myths really do come directly from fans, and in one memorable case viewers sent rare gun scopes and ammunition to help prove a myth the Mythbusters had busted. Jamie also explained how he and Adam first got together for the show - Jamie had previously worked with Adam, and when the opportunity for "Mythbusters" came up, he though Adam's personality would be a good complement to his on television, and invited him on board.

We also got a couple of different clip packages. One was a rough cut from an upcoming episode that did not feature the familiar "Mythbusters" narrator, a Canadian who works out of Australia where the show is edited and assembled. Instead, we heard the early temp track voice of one of their producers - Australian or British accented, I can't remember which - speaking over a clip of Adam in Batman armor, trying to withstand hurricane force winds generated by a 747 jet engine turbine. Later in the hour came the trailer for the new season, which I believe was a subtle spoof on the "Inception" trailer, except with more explosions and science. The clips went by very quickly, but one of the myths will be testing whether or not someone's body temperature drops when they're scared. Thus Grant will be stuck in a box of spiders and Kari will have to eat bugs. Another will be testing the aerodynamics of driving a Porsche backwards.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end. The panel finished a little after 8PM, and after six panels I was pretty much finished too. So concludes my Comic-Con coverage. I hope I'll get to do it again sometime.

I readily admit that I'm not a regular viewer of "The Deadliest Catch," Discovery's documentary series on Alaskan crab fisherman who work under extreme conditions. I never watched any of the episodes before last Tuesday's, but I can understand the appeal of the program. The series presents an unvarnished look at a difficult profession and the tough-as-nails, blue-collar men who make their living from it. It's been so popular, the reruns are in syndication, similar programs like "Ice Road Truckers" and "American Loggers" followed in its wake, and there's even a spinoff, "After the Catch," where crew members discuss past events during the off season. Prominent sponsors include Coors and Acura, which went so far as to slap its logo on all the maps used in the show to track the locations of the ships, forming their own little hood ormanent-shaped archipelago right off the coast of Alaska.

I remember one of late night talk show hosts' monologues making reference to the show, complaining that all the episodes had the same plot. The ships would go out into frigid Arctic waters, they'd catch the crabs, and then they'd come back and collect their payday. This was a serious misrepresentation. My first episode opened with Captain Phil Harris of the Cornelia Marie finding one of his sons stealing his pain medication for a fix. On another ship, the Northwestern, a deck hand's father had gone missing back home, and a tense phone call with his mother revealed a worrying development. And on another ship, the Time Bandit, the captain was debating whether to train his son or another crew member to succeed him as captain of the vessel. And all of this was before Harris's stroke occurred, in the closing moments of the episode.

And there's the elephant in the room. I have to admit I never would have given "Deadliest Catch" a second glance if I hadn't heard about Harris's stroke. And I would be lying if I claimed that there wasn't any rubbernecking impulse involved with my decision to tune in, but I had personal reasons too. My own father suffered a stroke a few months ago. Luckily he survived and is recuperating just fine, but there was a lot of uncertainty in the first few weeks, and since then all mentions of heart attacks and strokes in the popular media seem to stand out a little bigger. When Harris's passing was announced, it was impossible to avoid the eulogies and some lively discussions of the (im)propriety of incorporating the event into the show. I'm glad that they decided to go ahead and show us the brunt of the stroke and its aftermath.

The experience of watching the episodes, especially Tuesday's follow-up, was one of the most cathartic experiences I've had watching any kind of live television. I started tearing up when one of the deck hands was persuading Harris's older son Josh to go to Anchorage to be with his father in the hospital, instead of staying behind with the Cornelia Marie, because his own father died and he regretted not being there. Of course no one on the show knew at that point that Captain Harris wasn't going to make it, and I had no idea whether Josh would be in time or not. These were people I had known for all of an hour and a half of screen time, but the intensity of the situation was so affecting, I couldn't tear myself away from the television set.

It's apparent that the "The Deadliest Catch" crews consistently let the camera get very up close and personal, and it almost feels voyeuristic to see these events being caught on film for broadcast, but there have been reassurances from the family in recent media coverage that filming proceeded with their approval. Captain Harris reportedly even told the crew explicitly that he wanted his story to have an ending. I'll be watching in the weeks to come, probably bawling my eyes out and phoning my father after each episode. This is why I like watching reality shows, and refuse to write off the genre, despite all the nasty, exploitative, gossip column horrors wrought by the worst of them. As much as the television producers shave off the rough corners and play their editing tricks, sometimes the genuine moments come through.

"The Deadliest Catch" airs Tuesdays on the Discovery Channel. And yes, this means Comcast cut me a deal and I have basic cable again.

Reality shows are a funny sort of category, as they can cover everything from dating programs like "The Bachelor" to talent competitions like "American Idol" to documentary/informational hybrids like "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" and "Undercover Boss," to celebrity profiles like "The Simple Life" to trumped-up game shows like "Survivor." It's a popular sentiment to hate reality shows wholesale, and I can certainly sympathize, but the truth is that they're hard to dismiss because they cover such a huge spectrum of programming that can otherwise be difficult to categorize. Wikipedia lists ten subgenres, including "Social Experiments," "Talk Shows" and "Hoaxes," but several popular programs don't seem to fit any of them. Is "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" really a home improvement show? Is "Jersey Shore" a social experiment, a documentary, or just an elaborate farce? And where do we put "Candid Camera"?

When trying to draw distinctions, it's easy to get confused very quickly. The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the organization behind the Emmy Awards, splits the field between competitive and non-competitive reality shows. I think a better distinction would be grouping the shows by their participants: the talented people, the real people, and the celebrities. By "talented people" I mean those people who are chosen to participate in a reality program because of talents that relate to the show's premise: singers chosen for "American Idol," cake decorators being profiled on "Ace of Cakes," and pretty much anyone speaking to the subject of their expertise on programs like "Antiques Roadshow," or "Dirty Jobs." Celebrities should need no explanation, save that I'll qualify that hosts and judges shouldn't count, since they're part of a program's infrastructure rather than participants, or in the case of documentary shows, their subject matter.

"Real people," by contrast, are people who are chosen to participate in a show because of their apparent normality, people who are meant to represent the common man or woman. Many are unlucky or have daunting personal challenges to overcome, like the participants on "The Biggest Loser," "Supernanny," or "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." If they do have exceptional talents, these make for a more colorful contestant profile when they appear on "Deal or No Deal," "Minute to Win It," or non-celebrity versions of "The Apprentice," but such talents do not generally provide any advantage in competitions. And finally, real people are meant to provide that oft elusive quality of verisimilitude to social experiment and documentary shows like "The Real Housewives of Orange County."

Though all categories of reality show have their good and bad entries, most of my problems with reality programming involve those shows that purport to follow or involve real people, especially the ones that resort to manipulative tactics to sell a picture of reality that is obviously not true to life. The simpler competition and game shows are usually all right, since they're dependably structured to place focus on the contestant's performance, not their personal attributes or backstory. Also, the amount of coaching and prompting of the contestants involved is usually constrained by concerns of partiality and fairness. "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" and "The Amazing Race" are a little stagey, but you don't get the sense that there's heavy behind-the-scenes manipulation going on.

The problems really come the the forefront when you look at the competitions with more arbitrary judging schemes, like "The Bachelor" or "The Apprentice," or the social experiment shows like "Wife Swap." The producers of these reality programs clearly cherry pick footage, coach the participants, and can invent dramatic moments and even whole narrative arcs out practically nothing with a little judicious editing. Reports of supposedly spontaneous reactions being filmed multiple times or presented out of context are common. And of course, the casting for these shows is heavily biased toward photogenic young people, many of them aspiring actors who are often heavily prepped on how to act "genuine" for the cameras.

Of course the talent and celebrity shows are guilty of many of the same tactics, but the people involved are not being billed as your average Joe or Jane, and their shows are not heavily dependent on the reality aspect. The "Project Runway" designers may endure manufactured personal tensions, but the competition is still about designing clothing. And when Kathy Griffin is prancing about town for "My Life on the D-List," it's no secret that most of the events on her show have been specifically set up to give her a chance to react in outrageous ways. She's a performer performing, and there's always a certain degree of self-awareness to the situation. But when real people are involved, it feels exploitative and disingenuous.

Reality shows do not reflect reality, but the ones that pretend to do so never come off well. I don't want to write off the entire category since there have been some honestly ambitious, complicated programs that have used the social experiment angle to tackle social ills, including "30 Days" and "Food Revolution," but these are very few and far between. Rather, when the camera lens looks at real people in most of these shows, it tends to push even the most innocuous personalities to extremes, magnify minor faults to hideous proportions, and present a terribly warped picture even when the portrayals are positive. There's a growing collection of follow-up news stories about former "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" families who ran into financial and legal troubles after getting their new houses, or dating show contestants whose TV-blessed relationships disintegrated once the spotlight was gone.

Look at what happens to the real people whose reality program stints lead to fame. The talented people who are chosen for their talents, tend to become famous for their talents. Real people who become "reality stars," on the other hand, tend to gain notoriety rather than lasting acclaim. Consider the career prospects of "Survivor" winner Richard Hatch or "Apprentice" headliner Omarosa, compared to any of the runners-up on "American Idol" or "Top Chef" or even "America's Next Top Model." Jon and Kate Gosselin may make for good tabloid fodder, but their appeal seems limited to the rubberneckers these days, following the melodrama of their falling out. The only reality star I can think of who has successfully cashed in has been Elizabeth Hasselbeck, also formerly of "Survivor," who transitioned into a conservative commentator on "The View."

In the end, I don't mind the reality shows. It's the real people that are co-opted and transmogrified by them - the "reality" people that I can't stand.