That's entertainment

Thursday, June 20, 2002
Gloria Masoner

Following a two month long exercise in remodeling, I've expressed my strong aversion to hammers, saws, screwdrivers, sandpaper and paint to my husband. He was very understanding -- he's experienced that same aversion from the inception of our remodeling project.

Now that the family reunion is over, I feel I can relax, sit back and watch as the spiders spin their beautiful webs on the basement walls -- visible to the outside world only on semi-annual visits from friends or family.

In between watching the spiders create their works of art, I may decide to spend a little more time vegetating in front of the TV.

Up until this point, I've never admitted I'm a sci-fi fan. I watch "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" faithfully. I cried when they said Fox Mulder on the X Files had died. I've always enjoyed any movie with the word "Star" in it and I had really gotten into the show "Farscape" up until the beginning of last season when Brad informed me it was just getting way to far-fetched.

Explain that to me.

This is a show about a bunch of diverse characters with very diverse backgrounds. They include an astronaut from the United States, a guy who uses his flesh beard and six foot long tongue as a weapon and a blue medicine woman. One of the main characters is a puppet-like creature that the producers of the movie try to convince the audience isn't really a puppet at all but a dignitary from some doomed planet who eats constantly and has the manners of a pig. The ship happens to be piloted by a multi-armed ugly guy with a gentle voice named (can you imagine) "Pilot." Also included in the cast is a woman who changes color based on the ensemble she happens to be wearing and a non-human woman who becomes the love interest of the American because she is metabolically similar to his own race.

Exactly when did this show become far-fetched?

Luckily, Brad has never gotten into the "reality-based" shows that are becoming so popular. Talk about far-fetched.

The makers of this show try to convince you that they've dropped a group of people on some deserted island and left them there with only a box full of staple goods and their smarts. It appears to me that most of these people have a lot more going for them than their brains.

Producers and promoters of this show try to convince its viewers that the contestants are out there alone, with no way to contact the outside world.

Watching this show, several questions come to mind

- Who's the guy behind the camera?

- Who's the guy telling the guy behind the camera what he should be doing?

- And last but certainly not least, exactly how long is the line of guys behind the guy who's behind the camera? Has anyone stopped to consider that out of all those invisible people running around, at least one of them is carrying a cell phone?

Another "reality" series pits contestants against their biggest fears.

Let's get one thing straight -- I'm not afraid of eating from a bowl of crawling maggots or a slice of pig uteris. I just refuse to do it.

I'm not exactly afraid of scaling the side of a mountain and jumping from the side of a cliff with a rubberband attached to my ankle either. The fact is I'd never make it to the top. If I did, then the fear might kick in, but the trip up is highly unlikely.

My all time favorite, is the one that decided to hitch up a couple of folks who had never met before.

Turns out the millionaire had a few domestic problems and the bride...well the bride just wanted an easy way to get a lot of money. Back in my day, it was known as gold digging. Today they call it entertainment.

Didn't anyone realize two people who were willing to marry complete strangers on national TV might have a couple of issues to address?

Somewhere toward the bottom of my list of favorite programming -- on a a scale of 1-10 it falls at 5,432 -- is the professional wrestling fiasco.

I know I've said it before, and heaven knows, I'll probably say it again, but get a life.

The other night, instead of retiring to a rousing game of chess with my dogs, I subjected myself to watching a guy vomit in a bucket and another guy pour the contents of that bucket on his opponent.

I asked my husband why he watched that kind of disgusting, prepubescent behavior by a bunch of grown men with no acting talent and even fewer brain cells.

"It's for the entertainment," he told me.

I have a fantasy. It involves Tom Brokaw and a late-breaking news segment in which he tells his audience that shows involving reality TV and half-dressed men surrounded by ropes and aluminum chairs have been banned by the Federal Communications Commission.

Now that's entertainment.

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