Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Six Lessons in 30 TV Minutes

Last night for 30 minutes I was watching three shows at once: Anthony Bourdain, The Big Bang, and Behind the Scenes of the Bachelor.  Who said TV is a waste of time? Lessons can be learned from them all:

1) First lesson is that although I felt pretty smug about being able to watch three shows at once and getting the gist of all three, of course it left me wondering about the parts I missed.  Ah, so very like life itself.

I pretty much hate The Bachelor show now because it's just ridiculous, but I did have a curiosity about what they'd reveal in the 20/20 behind-the-scenes special. 

2) It bugs me that people criticized the bachelor (Brad Womack) who didn't choose a girl.  He was given 25 girls, but had to eliminate 10 after only a couple of hours so maybe "the one" was inadvertently eliminated the first night.  Out of the 15 that are left, we find from this "behind the scenes" show that some of the girls each season are chosen not because they fit the bachelor's checklist, but for the entertainment of the audience (for instance, they chose "drama queens" hoping for conflict)!  So this poor guy was supposed to find his life mate from maybe ten girls?!

So my second lesson is that even though you think you're watching reality TV, you're not.  Even "real" isn't necessarily real, so beware!

3) There's also a bad lesson here:  Our values are warped when we vilify someone for not lying just to satisfy our desire for a "happy ending." 
 
4) By the way, read my blogpost "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted?" because as much as I dislike her, I want to thank Melissa Rycroft for proving my point.  Yes!!  When she was "dumped" by Jake last season, she was devastated...and now she can't believe she even wanted him.  So yes, your blindness does tend to clear with time.  It's a miracle!

5) On the Anthony Bourdain "No Reservations" show, he visited China and ate grilled butterfly larvae and crispy crickets.  I was surprised to hear the comment, "Well if China rules the world in twenty years, at least it'll be FUN."  I never thought of China or Chinese as fun before, but took this as a lesson to start seriously thinking of what it'd be like if/when the U.S. weren't the world power.  For young people, it's a wake up call to get serious about having a life plan because you don't want to end up catching crickets for a living.  Ok, I'm kidding, I'm sure they don't catch them one by one, but you know what I mean.

And yes, there was also a life lesson to be learned on "The Big Bang"!  Sheldon wanted revenge on Wil Wheaton and since I had no idea who that was (yaaaay I'm not a nerd!!!) that's not the lesson. 

6) In the sub-plot, Howard demanded that Leonard ask Penny to find him a girl and they all had a double date.  Things didn't look good because the fixed-up couple had no interests in common.  It ended nicely, though, because they discovered that they both had unbearably controlling mothers--one Jewish and the other Catholic--and now had a common goal: to flaunt their relationship to upset their moms.  The lesson here is that perhaps mothers shouldn't smother!  Maybe we should hope for World Smothering because perhaps it will eventually lead to World Peace as all children marry out of their religions.  *Plugging ears so as not to hear the backlash while humming John Lennon's "Imagine"*