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Wednesday, February 26, 2003

There's an old joke about two people on an airplane complaining about the terrible food.

"It tastes like cardboard," says one.

"Yes," says the other, "and such small portions."

That's how I felt watching "Joe Millionaire," the latest "reality TV" sensation in which 20 women vied to win a super-rich guy, only to discover in the end that he was just a run-of-the-mill ex-underwear model turned backhoe operator.

The only thing more maddening than the show itself was how little of it actually appeared on screen between the interminable commercials.

There must have been 10 ads in every break, fired off like bullets in an AK-47 and with much the same effect: I, for one, felt thoroughly assaulted by the time the bursts ended, even with the sound turned off.

Throw in the too-cute-by-half appearances of Paul the Butler introducing every bite-size segment, and the actual program content of each one-hour episode probably amounted to about 20 minutes.

I briefly considered timing one of the broadcasts as an experiment to see if my suspicion was correct, but that would have required paying close attention. It was already bad enough that I was watching the darn thing in the first place.

Not that anyone was holding a vial of smallpox to my head or anything. But I did feel a perverse need to check in on the series, just to see to what new depths the world of reality TV had sunk.

That, of course, is precisely what the producers of each successive entry into the genre count on. There are no bounds to the public's appetite for watching other people make fools of themselves, and the crasser and kitschier the better.

"Joe Millionaire" it turned out was pretty crass. The series promised to unmask the gold-diggers and show Evan Marriott, the man of the hour, whether his chosen mate loved him for himself or his money. Because, after all, what better way is there to find your soul mate than to lie to her for weeks on end in front of millions of viewers.

As misnomers go, the very phrase "reality TV" is right up there with telephone solicitors making "courtesy calls" during the dinner hour and Congress gutting the Bill of Rights with the "Patriot Act."

The last time I paid attention to a reality show was three years ago, when the form was in its infancy and Rick Rockwell plucked Darva Conger out the harem in a Fox show called "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire."

Rockwell, you may remember, is the Fox Chapel High School grad, stand-up comedian and real estate investor who still claims he was looking for true love when he appeared on the show.

Instead, his instant marriage to Conger, their loveless honeymoon and the discovery of Rockwell's past legal problems provoked a firestorm of anguished commentary before the two split up -- gosh, what were the chances of that happening? -- and reduced each other to punch lines on late-night TV.

Ah, we were so naive back then.

So along came "Joe Millionaire," and before I knew it I was semihooked and semihating myself in the morning.

"I can't believe you two are actually watching that," my husband would say to my daughter and me before escaping upstairs to read some high-minded biography.

"I can't either," I'd call after him.

"Why not?" my 12-year-old would ask. "Don't you want to see who he picks?"

"Um, well, shhh, it's starting. Oh, never mind, it's another commercial."

"Joe Millionaire" was as real as a rubber check, but at least it didn't end with a shotgun wedding. That's coming around again, though, in a series called "Married by America." Viewers will match up total strangers who meet for the first time at their own marriage ceremony.

Have we learned nothing from Rick and Darva? Is this a train wreck waiting to happen or what?

The ratings are going to be huge. So, no doubt, are the commercial breaks.