I’m a sucker for low budget TV shows. Shoddy filming, ever-present white noise and questionable plots all add up to hours of entertainment in my mind, so naturally I’m drawn to the eccentric programming of TLC. I remember watching the TLC of old during my childhood, back when it was a channel made up of one part baby shows, two parts makeover shows, and 79 parts Ty Pennington from Trading Spaces. But alas, gone are the days when footage of happy newborns and ugly people becoming less ugly were enough to keep people occupied for hours on end. Things have been shaken up, and the programming has been entirely revised. I assume that this change was the result of a conversation at network headquarters that went something like this:
Head Honcho 1: “Man, our ratings have really gone to shit. Our film crews have restraining orders from 107 international hospitals so the baby schtick just ain’t happening. And is it just me, or has Ty’s hair lost some of its spike?”
Head Honcho 2: “I’ve noticed it too. But fear not, I have an idea!”
Head Honcho 1: “Do tell!”
Head Honcho 2: “This chick a couple states over just popped out a kid in a Walmart bathroom and claims she had no idea she was pregnant. I’m going to make a show about it!”
Head Honcho 1: “Wait, she didn’t know she was pregnant? How would you not know that?”
Head Honcho 2: “She was totes fat.”
Head Honcho 1: “Ah. That explains it. But wouldn’t airing such a pointless show compromise the integrity of our network? ….Haha!”
Head Honcho 2: “LOL! Thank god we live in America.”
The two men then proceeded to do a freeze-frame high five while “America, Fuck Yeah!” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhnUgAaea4M) blared in the background. And on that day, a whole new roster of poorly conceptualized shows was born.
I was going to just do a loosely formatted analysis of the shows that I found to be the most mind-bendingly dumb, but then I had an epiphany. My parents forced me to go to church almost every Sunday for 14 years of my life, and since the only thing I’ve gotten out of it at this point is that I’m really fucking allergic to Easter flowers, I figured I’d integrate some of my knowledge into this. And so, to introduce you the magic of TLC, I’ve chosen seven shows and attached each to the “deadly sin” it portrays. Sidenote: Mom and Dad, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry for being a bad Christian. I’m like 90% sure there’s a bible kicking around somewhere in my room though, that counts for something right?
Sin Number 1: Pride- the desire to be more important or attractive than others, failing to acknowledge the good work of others, and excessive love of self.
The Show: Four Weddings
Four Weddings is 60 minutes of wedding porn. To all guys reading this, I should probably clarify that wedding porn is not something on cable TV that you’ve been missing out on. It’s just footage of people’s weddings, and in girl world it’s a genre of porn all by itself. The premise of the show is that four brides attend each other’s weddings and rank them in terms of their food, venue, dress, etc. The winning bride and the poor soul she managed to drag onto the show with her get a complimentary honeymoon and the other three are left to bitterly return home with their new husbands and presumably file for divorce. So where does the pride come in? Every single one of the brides thinks that her wedding is the best thing that has ever happened and ever will happen to anyone ever. High budget castle wedding with an immaculate reception? Best ever. Average church wedding with a warm, homey dinner? Best ever. 7am wedding in the middle of a leech infested river that results in at least one death? Best. Ever. In addition to thinking their wedding is the Holy Grail of marital ceremonies (church knowledge! Wait no, is that just Monty Python?), the brides are also completely ruthless in their evaluations of each other’s weddings and refuse to give credit where credit is due. A waiter can literally flambé their meal in front of them and they’ll still complain that it’s cold. When it comes to docking points, ANYTHING goes. Clearly this show has pride written all over it. Also pride rhymes with bride so it seems legit.
Sin Number 2: Envy- resenting another person who has something that one perceives themselves to be lacking and wishing the other person to be deprived of it.
The Show: Say Yes to the Dress
Ah, Say Yes to the Dress. More wedding porn! SYTTD focuses on brides in search of the perfect gown for their special day. With the help of a team of flamboyant staff members with viciously pencilled on eyebrows, ordinary girls are transformed into princesses, tears are shed, and their parents are awkwardly forced to shell out obscene amounts of money because they’re on TV and don’t want to look cheap. Now that all seems innocent enough, but there’s one more aspect that gives the show its signature sass. Each bride brings a group of friends and family with her to help her in her dress selection journey, and man, shit gets UGLY. On almost every episode, one of the bride’s single BFF’s or siblings turns down every dress simply because they’re bitter about the fact that they’re not the one getting married and really bad at showing it. Sometimes their criticisms are accurate, like when someone who is approximately half boob tries to go low-cut and looks like a hooker. But other times their comments are a bit more of a stretch, ie. “It’s too white.” “I don’t like the location of that crystal, it should be a half millimeter to the left. “ “The train makes your asscheeks look asymmetrical.” Generally, this leads to an unhappy bride crying and leaving the store empty handed, possibly to seek balanced asscheeks through surgical means. The moral of the story is that no matter how unflattering a dress is, envy is an even less flattering look. Oh, and that when you go wedding dress shopping you should do it on TV in order to manipulate your parents’ wallet.
Sin Number 3: Gluttony- the over-indulgence and over-consumption of anything to the point of waste.
The Show: My Strange Addiction
My Strange Addiction is a weird ass show. It focuses on people in the US who have, you guessed it, strange addictions. Of course when I say “strange”, I really mean “batshit insane”. I actually think the network wanted to use that term as well, but admittedly “My Batshit Insane Addiction” doesn’t have the same ring to it. Anyways, the addictions range from collecting life-sized dolls to sleeping with a hairdryer to eating a deceased spouse’s ashes. But regardless of what their addiction is, these people are FIENDS. Doll guy has his creepy “girlfriends” all over his house, hairdryer girl risks burning down her house and killing her children every night just for a little hot air, and ash-eater carries around an urn with her and just snacks all day long. And they’re not the only ones. These people are EVERYWHERE, depleting our natural resources of weird shit like life-sized dolls and the stuffing in couch cushions (yeah, people are that weird). In order to save the world from this excessive consumption, I have a plan: creating a new show, “My Strange Addiction: Rehab”, hosted by Dr. Drew. Now THAT would be good television! I should totally contact The Doc and see if he’d be down to get a proposal in the works…
Sin Number 4: Sloth- laziness and indifference.
The Show: Hoarding- Buried Alive
This show stresses me the fuck out because I’m claustrophobic, so I’ll leave it at this: Nothing says laziness and indifference quite like losing multiple cats and finding them dead underneath piles of boxes years later.
Sin Number 5: Lust- excessive thoughts or desires of a sexual nature.
The Show: 19 Kids and Counting
19 Kids and Counting is exactly what it sounds like. The Duggars are a married couple who have nineteen kids. NINETEEN KIDS. And as the title suggests, they’re still making babies like nobody’s business. I’m sorry, but if I had nineteen kids, I would STOP COUNTING. The Duggars are opposed to using any form of birth control due to religious beliefs, and while I don’t want to criticize them on said beliefs, I will criticize them on the fact that they are old and need to stop popping out babies ASAP. It’s hard enough for people with more than one biological sibling to have to live with the knowledge that their parents banged multiple times, but imagine being a Duggar and having 18+ siblings. Ew. Gross. No thanks. Pretty much every episode of the show starts with Mama Duggar announcing that she’s been blessed with yet another child, and now that some of her kids are grown up they’re having babies left and right too. It’s like they’re breeding an army. Oh, and did I mention that all of their names start with J? I personally can only think of like 8 J names, two of which are Jesus (alternate pronunciations). If running out of J names isn’t enough of a reason for the Duggars to stop spawning offspring, I have one more factor for them to consider. They have like 10 daughters. All of these daughters will turn into teenagers. Said teenage girls will be around each other all the time. Have fun when they all PMS at the same time!
Sin Number 6: Wrath- inordinate and uncontrolled feelings of hatred and anger.
The Show: Cake Boss
You’d think a show about a family who owns a cake shop would be full of heartwarming moments and kind words. Cake Boss quickly proves that notion to be very, very wrong. These people THROW DOWN. It’s essentially Jersey Shore with less smushing and more actual Italians. On every episode, without fail, there is at least one confrontation between two members of the cake shop staff, ranging from stern, finger wagging “You better shape up!” speeches to screaming matches that start for no apparent reason and always end with a cake being broken and Buddy Valastro (the infamous Cake Boss)’s large eyebrows knitting together in anger. The scapegoat for the majority of these conflicts is Cousin Anthony, a well-meaning young guy who’s just trying to move up in the cake delivery ranks. In some sort of never-ending power struggle, he and Buddy himself frequently get into spats that involve a lot of yelling and poorly orchestrated pranks (think buckets of flour rigged to spill when a door is opened). Unfortunately, my inner Paula Deen takes over whenever I watch the show and I just end up staring at cakes the whole time and eating sticks of butter, so I’m not entirely sure what the arguments are about. But oddly enough, I’m totally okay with that.
Sin Number 7: Greed- a very excessive or rapacious desire and pursuit of wealth, status, and power.
The Show: Toddlers and Tiaras
“A dolla makes me holla honey boo boo child!” If that line does not strike any semblance of recognition within your mind, please take a minute to search “honey boo boo child” on YouTube. I’ll wait for you....
For you rebels out there who stuck it to the man by refusing to go on my YouTube quest, all you need to know is that the person who proceeds to holla in the presence of a dolla is actually not a prostitute, but a little girl who possesses all the sass of Queen Latifah in a predictably scripted romantic comedy. And she’s not alone. A small army of tiny, spray tanned pageant contestants are featured in every episode, and dollars do indeed make them holler. They spend months snorting Pixy Stix and doing shots of Mountain Dew while their overweight mothers (who clearly aren’t living vicariously through them or anything) run through dance numbers that are really only suitable for strippers or the cast of Glee, all in the hopes of winning a giant cardboard cheque, a rhinestone-encrusted tiara that could easily impale someone, and a title along the lines of “Miss Supreme Deluxe Special Gorgeous Angel Beauty Diva” written on a sash. It’s madness, madness I say! …Actually no, those are pretty sweet prizes. Anyone have a child I can borrow?
So that’s TLC. Only in North America, folks. I realize I should probably do some sort of recap right about here, but you’ll have to excuse me, I off to compose an email to Dr. Drew. Please enjoy once more, for your listening pleasure, “America, Fuck Yeah!” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhnUgAaea4M
