Sunday, June 07, 2009

Get Those Celebrities Off My TV

I have something better than a review of I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here – pelicans.

I shot this photo at the weir in Saskatoon. And let's face it Pelicans have made a greater contribution to art than the producers of this show have simply by being the inspiration for Dixon Lanire Merrith's poem (misattributed to Ogden Nash):

A wonderful bird is a pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week;
But I'm damned if I see how the helican.

What have the producers of I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here given us? A location, described by one of the participants on the show as "absolute torture," that any cub scout let alone anyone who ever appeared on Survivor – including Elizabeth Hasselebeck – would call the lap of luxury by comparison to what they had to deal with. A bunch of challenges that substitute the gross-out factor for any need for actual physical ability. A group of people, most of whom most viewers have never heard of, who have so little to do in the day that the only thing they are left with is annoying the crap out of each other. And us. These people, who are living proof of the saying that "hell is other people," are frequently self-centred, self-important and suffering from overinflated egos, who take offence at the least little thing. I'm not even going to mention Heidi and Spencer from The Hills except to say this – watching them on the first episode of this show not only gave me a headache but I'm pretty sure contributed to the nauseous feeling that came over me after the show.

The simple fact is that there have been reality shows that not only weren't renewed (like Treasure Hunt) but were pulled off the air before they completed their run (Pirate Master) that were better than this steaming pile of crap. I was struggling with what to write about this show all week before I finally came up with this, and I'm more than slightly concerned that I've wasted more electrons with this than the show deserves.

But at least it gave me a chance to post a picture of pelicans.

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