Plunging the Depths

I think it was George Santayana who wrote famously to the effect that those who refuse to learn the lessons of the past are condemned to repeat them. This goes a long way to explain many contemporary bugaboos, including the Iraqi War, the price of gasoline, and most tellingly, "The Battle of the Network Reality Stars."

And it was Edgar Poe who wrote of the "Imp of the Perverse," the little demon inside us that makes us do just the wrong thing out of curiosity to experience it. Only through these brilliant minds can I explain my impulse to tape the "Battle of the Network Reality Stars" and worse, actually watch it. Dog days indeed.

The Bravo network, which experimented bravely a few years ago and produced the breakout hit "Queer Eye," then leapt happily and blindly onto the Reality bandwagon, and is now sporting a schedule of "Situation: Comedy" and Queer Eye and Kathy Griffin overexposures. But this consummate Reality event, "The Battle," is, if not as low as it can get, hopefully a parodic statement on the genre. Now that the cable nets are running out of third-tier celebrities to expose their quotidien lives, they're calling in the old troops to man the battlements.

So hello again to Richard Hatch and Susan Hawk of "Survivor," the equally ubiquitous ubermunchkin Charla and the horrifying alpha couple John and Victoria of "The Amazing Race," various Average Joe Shmoes, some eye candy from the bachelor/bachelorette escapades, along with stray assholes from "The Apprentice," "Big Brother," "The Real Life" and other shows too embarrassing to mention. Thirty-two "celebrity" contestants, representing the cream of the Reality crap. And, for good measure, the sweet Omarosa, a character around whom Shakespeare may well have fashioned a tragicomedy, serving as a commentator. Wow. Maybe Satan really is at work.

My fascination with this program is not the competition itself, but how the extravaganza somehow reflects the most vulgar in American popular culture. Rather like the Super Bowl, except this time I could Tivo through the commercials. The stakes are unbelievably lame--four teams of eight people compete for a combined $10,000. That's not even enough to pay for the transportation to the beachside setting (and I know what the cost of gas is in Malibu). What compels these people to try to extend their fifteen minutes of fame to fifteen years? I understand why Joe Millionaire Evan Marriott, who needs to max out on his good looks before the paunch sets in and the acting possibilities expire, wants to continue his media exposure. But can't the retreads from "The Apprentice," at least, find good paying jobs?

Part of the jaw-dropping, or if you will, transcendent absurdity of this program was its nostalgic salute to its progenitor, the fabulous "Battle of the Network Stars," a summer curiosity from 1979 starring such highTV-Q figures as Farrah Fawcett and Scott Baio (before I knew him). There were numerous flashbacks to the 1979 program, treated with the respect of Olympics highlights. But back in the present, the athletic events themselves were stupefyingly dull, picnic-level events like an obstacle course and a dunking contest. And shy of the dark personality conflicts and machinations that give the reality elimination shows at least a Darwinian tone, there's not much to enjoy about these people.

There is some kind of personality peculiarity in these folks so desperate for universal attention that would probably make them very uncomfortable to know in private. If I met any of them on the street--and living in Hollywood that is always a possibility--I would have nothing to say to them, and I'm sure, vice-versa. Yet these are the elite of the apparently millions of reality contestants and applicants for whom embarrassing television footage seems to be their only outlet from escaping the anonymity of real real life.

I zapped through the second half of the show, only to stumble upon another round of eliminations, so de rigeur in the genre, only to be faked out again by the "twist," (also de rigeur), that sent the banished players to ther teams instead of back to their lonely condos. Finally the show was over, and (punch line!) on the screen appeared the real-time Bravo programming. Guess what? There were Charla and Omarosa and Johnny Fairplay of "Survivor" leering at each other on "Celebrity Poker."