I’ve watched just about every new reality television show this year, and have mixed reviews. As for Star Search I’m a little bit disappointed that our web host’s cousin (that’d be Adam Growe in case you don’t read every article on this site) didn’t win because I felt like he was at least one of the top two or three when it comes to the first six comedians. But instead he didn’t even make the semifinals, which were eventually won by Loni Love. I can’t help but notice the similarity between her favorite movies and her ancestors coming over from Africa. Offended? Oh, I’m sorry, white people can’t make black jokes, my bad. The fact that Ty and Jeff both made racial jokes and won was pretty interesting to me. Loni capitalized on 9/11 and is basically a black version of Roseanne Barr if you think about it. Let’s talk a little more about the show and other shows …

The judges stink. Ben Stein is a nerd. There, I said it. Nerds have a purpose in this world, and Ben serves his on the show bearing his name. Naomi Judd gave birth to a sexy daughter in Ashley, and apparently had 15 number one singles in country music, which sadly isn’t too tough to do. She’s obnoxious, rude, and argumentative with other judges. She has also made insensitive comments. Then there’s that other lady who I guess wrote for Seinfeld. Aside from the fact that she has huge breasts, nothing really stands out about her. On the first two episodes she used the time allotted to her for handing out a rating to deliver an obviously pre-determined one liner. They weren’t funny, and while she is the least annoying, I still don’t like her. That brings us to the rotating fourth chair, occupied by such folks as Jack Osbourne, that blonde dude from N’Sync, Tyrese, and Chaka Khan. Sometimes they are funny, other times they are harsh, but at least they are a change of pace. I liked Tyrese’s honesty and knowledge of singing.

As for the host and the format? Arsenio is Arsenio, love him or hate him. He isn’t over the top bad, but isn’t good either. He’s no Ed McMahon, that’s for sure. The format is awful. Yeah, live voting, great idea except that three hours earlier everyone from Maine to Florida gets to cast their vote while every other time zone has zero influence on the results. Maybe for model this works, but I don’t vote for a comedian based on their mug, so it seems pretty stupid to me. Plus, everyone who comes out of the east coast has a huge advantage because you know everyone watching live will run to their computer and vote for the home town favorite. To borrow from the dearly departed Gene Siskel, I give this show a thumbs down.

The one everyone is talking about is Joe Millionaire on Fox, which finally has its first reality hit. The bad news is that it will be a one hit wonder because while girls can be dumb at times, they’re not going to fall for this one twice. Personally, I love it. You have the hot chicks being forced to shovel coal and then getting dumped by a guy they don’t realize is poor, how great is that? In only two episodes there has been plenty of drama, including the girl (Heidi) who came on the show after leaving her (presumably not multi-millionaire) boyfriend at home. Nice. Then there’s the classic brainless blonde (Dana) who got booted and did the talk show tour saying how glad she was since she found out he didn’t have the 50 million. The show was so well received that they ran the first two episodes again to catch everyone up. A reprise is unlikely without a modification because you won’t find 20 women who have not watched or heard about this show. However, I’d like to see a reversal with a rich man coming onto a show looking for love called “Ordinary Joe” and come to find out (at the end) that he is in fact loaded.

A few other reality shows came on, including High School Reunion and Surreal Life, neither of which I can find an appropriate link to on the WB site. The HSR premise is to throw a bunch of people together who 10 years earlier graduated from the same high school, making sure that all the demographics and love triangles are firmly in place, and see what happens. It’s Real World with a past history. I’ll be honest, I could barely sit through the first episode because unlike other reality shows these people aren’t interesting. Survivor and other shows like it draw from an entire nation of applicants, this show had only one graduating class of maybe 400 people. Big difference and it shows. Now the Surreal Life started out promising with what I call the “almost famous” group. I have watched plenty of television and movies over the years, and I didn’t even know all 7 before the show began. Brande Roderick was in playboy, apparently a playmate of the year. If you say so WB. The knock was allowing Jerri from Survivor 2, but she has face recognition if not name recognition. M.C. Hammer I still have some love for because he started out as an Oakland A’s bat boy, but his preaching gets old in about 5 minutes. Corey Feldman has already ticked everyone off with his long speeches. Vince Neil is probably the most famous of anyone on the show, and has the least attitude to go along with it. Gabrielle Carteris ruined Beverly Hills 90210 for me because her character annoying, but as a person in real life she’s okay. Emmanuelle Lewis, or Gary Coleman’s evil twin, is flat out weird. Overall, the show seemed cool until I found out it lasts only 10 days and they cram five months (the term of MTV’s Real World) worth of activities into that time frame. Skip it.