I Like to Watch

Aug. 19, 2007 | The other day, someone told me that reality TV is just the same thing, over and over again. That doesn't really deter me, though, since most of the stuff I like is just the same thing over and over: Crawling into bed at night. Melting cheese on top of stuff. Hanging out with my pet monkey -- er, I mean, my kid.

It's like watching "Law & Order" for the 50 millionth time. You sit through the repetitive stuff to get to the part that's truly surprising. In fact, as in marriage, child-rearing and everything else that's rewarding in life, the taxing, repetitive parts actually warm you up for the good stuff.

What strikes me the most when I watch reality shows is how often I see things that I've never seen before. This summer alone, I've watched a white guy with dreadlocks donning a captain's hat and speaking in an unintentional British accent, I've seen a gay real estate mogul instructing his assistant in what percentage of lemonade, Sprite and fruit punch he prefers in his beverage, I've seen a middle-aged rocker inflicting intentional psychological torture on his roommates, and I've watched surveillance-camera footage of a 45-year-old virgin attempting to pick up women.

Now, if there were brilliant comedies and dramas about faux-British, dreadlock-adorned white guys and high-maintenance gay real estate moguls and sociopathic middle-aged rockers and 45-year-old virgins, I'd be sure to tune in. But those shows don't exist. Instead, the TV scribes write comedies and dramas about superpowered heroes and troubled cops and yuppies with bad marriages. Or, if you're talking about this fall's new shows, superpowered cops with bad marriages. Are you excited to watch four female friends quipping about their sex lives over lunch at a fancy restaurant yet again? Are you looking forward to seeing yet another courtroom drama that ends when the brilliant lawyer gets the key witness to blurt out that he's guilty? If so, you're in luck.

Lather, rinse, repeat
If not, I'd keep my options open, because some of the most surprising, unpredictable and heartwarming moments can be found on reality shows. You just have to look past the dull hosts and repetitive elimination challenges, which are just window dressing for the inspired madness hidden therein.

Take "The Pick-Up Artist" (9 p.m. on VH1), which, at first glance, is just the sort of insipid trash that most of us habitually seek to avoid. The show aims to demonstrate the enormous powers of Erik von Markovik, aka Mystery, a former geek who has allegedly cracked the combination on America's panties. On the show, Mystery is charged with turning a gaggle of sexually frustrated nerds into smooth operators in a matter of weeks. The most successful transformation from AFC (Another Frustrated Chump) to PUA (Pick-Up Artist) wins $50,000 and a chance to join Mystery's crew of lady-wooing henchmen, known as Master PUAs.

Are you rolling your eyes yet? In any other country on the globe, Mystery's impressive way with women would make him that odd-looking guy who gets the girls for some unknown reason. But in America, his uncanny skills have become a franchise, landing him in men's magazines and newspapers, and snagging him tons of money. Only in America could a former D&D geek reinvent himself as the world's leading authority on the art of seduction.

By the time Mystery shows his face, our confusion knows no bounds: Fuzzy black hat, eyeliner, goggles inexplicably perched on his head -- Mystery looks like a dork dressed up as a pimp for Halloween. Even the stuttering, sweating, desperate gaggle of geeks look skeptical. Worse, Mystery has two extremely average-looking dudes with him, each dressed like contestants on "Rock Star" and preening around with such exaggerated swagger that the nervous dorks are starting to look appealingly genuine by comparison.

But then Mystery leads the guys to a local club that's been tricked out with several surveillance cameras. He instructs them to go into the club and hit on women while he and his evil henchmen watch from a van outside. The men exchange glances like they've just been told that they're going to be tethered to a side of beef and lowered into shark-infested waters.

Next page: Chumpy's got game!