I watched brief portions of "I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!" on a long DVR delay, because there are just some bullets a TV critic has to be ready to jump in front of, and any show featuring Spencer Pratt telling Patti Blagojevich that Rod would have his vote for president is one of those. But not long after I heard Spencer whine to Ben Silverman, quote, "This cast is devaluing our fame!," I knew I would have to stop watching shortly. Remember our discussion about wanting to end a show while it's still perfect, rather than letting it drag on past the point of diminishing returns? "This cast is devaluing our fame" was that point for this show. Why ruin its beauty by continuing? Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse. Did anybody else watch? More to the point, are you going to watch again?
31 comments:
most of the time I envy your job ... not tonight after realizing that you had to watch that, while I watched The Godfather on HDNET.
(btw - I think I have heard the name Spencer Pratt - but without cheating and googling the name - my best guess is that he was married to Julia Roberts?)
Life's too short and you're dead too long for "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here."
I really wish I hadn't missed that part. But the thing about Spencer is - everytime you think he's topped himself? No, it just gets better. I never thought I would hear anything that beat him comparing he and and Lauren's relationship as like "Israel and Iran - it's not gonna happen." Wrong.
I was at a Dodger game and they showed Spencer and Heidi on the Diamond Vision; Barry Bonds got less boos than they did that night!
Alan, you deserve battle pay for watching this show.
Although the possibility of Janice Dickinson making mincemeat out of Heidi and Spencer is tempting (and she could crush them with just a few words), actually watching the show in case it happens might kill me. Of all the useless faux celebrities who emerged from The Hills, they're the most useless.
did watch. even if i knew it was on, I wouldn't have. I heard Jimmy Osmond was on once...
Maybe it Donny, Josh or Scott was on... okay *definitely* if Scott was on, but he'd have to give me a good excuse to not lose his credibility by *being* on....
captcha: worms !
I'd rather be locked in a room listening to Enya
Have never watched the hills or whatever mtv show they're on and hate the premise, but it's summer and I live in Chicago and kinda wanted to watch to see how lame Mrs. Blago was. Color me horrified and amused. Aside from a few minutes on Leno, I'd never seen Spedi speak before, and it was ... kinda like Big Brother. What's with all the hair products?
Did kinda dig the call to Silverman, though. They should have had more of that!
In addition to watching quality television, I also like to watch terrible reality tv (I know, I know), but even I couldn't watch this. Who is the target audience? None of the 'celebs' made me want to stick around for more. Other than Janice and Spencer's fake stuff, there doesn't seem to be anyone who will stir things up or hook up or anything interesting. And I can't see The Hills audience watching since Heidi and Spencer aren't the same (still fake, just in a different way) and suddenly seem to be spouting their Christianity everywhere - where did that come from? Oh and is Heidi coming out with a new dry shampoo? That was weird that it was a huge focus.
I couldn't imagine that it would be worse than the original, but I was wrong. This is supposed to save Ben Silverman?
There was nothign else on from 8-9 so I watched this. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
I've never watched The Hills or any of those shows it spawned/was spawned from so what I know of Spencer Pratt and Heidi is gleaned from BWE and The Soup and the entire Internet making fun of them. I thought I had a pretty good handle on the level of d-baggery and stupidity I'd see from those two.
Needless to say, I was wrong. Watching short clips of them in no way prepared me for the full on experience. They are vile, vile, vile....just vile. I have to imaagine that The Hills would be 100x more horrific, who is watching that show and making these two "famous" and could you stop that please?
The show overall, well, it is what it is, which is tragic beyond belief. Honestly, the thing that made me tune in was Lou Diamond Phillips because I was surprised, he's a good actor and I hadn't realized how far down the show biz ladder he'd tumbled and my curiosity got the better of me.
It's grim. It's just grim.
Maura,
Your attempt to belittle Heidi and Spencer immediately fell flat when you went with Janice Dickinson. The rest of us are glad to not be watching any of those three...
my husband decided to watch it, and I stuck around thinking it'd be fun to see them fall on their asses somewhere. But the moment Heidi said that being in the Costa Rican jungle was a form of torture, I felt I was going to be sick. And then soon after that, Spencer whined about his celebrity being devalued and I just had to leave the room. These people should be airdropped into a refugee camp in Africa and left to redeem themselves by taking care of others' needs for a while.
I will definitely enjoy Joel McHale's skewering of them this weekend. And I hope the comedy duo wins, because they're the only ones I've never heard of so they're probably not horrible people.
I never punched my TV set before tonight.
I watched three minutes of this show before it dawned on me that I have books to read, laundry to do and paint to watch dry. And this is going to be on four nights a week? Congratulations, NBC -- between this and giving a third of prime time to Jay Leno, you've finally broken me of my nightly TV-watching habit.
I just want to put Spencer's comment in context. He should vote for Blajo since he is one of the few people who can relate to the idea that it's not enough just to steal your paychecks but you should go above and beyond and milk your position for all it's worth.
I don't understand how this is such a huge hit in England. What isn't translating from there to here?
I haven't seen it, but I'm interested to see how close they stick to the British format. The UK version's actually very funny and imaginative (for a silly reality show about celebs in the jungle). I'm curious to see why it doesn't appear to translate (this is the second time they've tried, as execs apparenly watch the UK version, love it, but seem incapable of replicating it.) Maybe our version is funnier? I'll have to checkout the US version (it starts over here next week.)
Incidentally, Janice Dickinson's in this, yes? Unfair advantage. She appeared in the UK version!
"The show overall, well, it is what it is, which is tragic beyond belief. Honestly, the thing that made me tune in was Lou Diamond Phillips because I was surprised, he's a good actor and I hadn't realized how far down the show biz ladder he'd tumbled and my curiosity got the better of me" - Kathy
I'm confused on this too. He was just on the Numb3rs season finale, tracking down James Callis. (my screen almost died at the geekdom.)
I have yet to see this show, but the possibility of Janice making Speidi (both of them or it doesn't count) cry is almost too much to stay away from. Janice Dickinson was made for reality TV 30 years too early and is making up for it now.
Even though I live in Chicago I'm not going to watch this show. The local news will cover what I need to know, and what they don't cover I'm sure The Soup will. I'm so sorry you have to watch it Alan.
I've been a happy TV viewer for about 22 years now, and I honestly can't think of a more perfect storm of stupid concept + unlikable cast members + terrible promotion + preset mark of failure via summer schedule release.
There is nothing on Earth short of being forced to under threat of bodily harm that would lead to my watching a single second of this travesty.
I watched for the sheer train-wreck curiosity factor, and all this show did was confirm my decision five years ago to flee the world of reality television production and never look back. I don't miss anything about having to work on ridiculous shows like this.
My main point of disbelief? That it's going to be on four nights a week. Didn't NBC learn anything from Big Brother season one? America just doesn't watch TV in that manner. I'll be getting all my future "Celebrity" watching from the weekly Soup skewering, thank you very much.
The one saving grace last night: listening to Patti reason her way through why what her husband did wasn't wrong. It was alternately compelling/horrifying.
I'll be the one to admit that I watched a good 20 minutes of this, voluntarily, lol. I've never watched The Hills, and don't watch any other "reality" programming besides American Idol - but anyone who follows Hollywood gossip or The Soup knows who Heidi and Spencer (and his creepy flesh colored beard) are.
I turned the show on just to watch Heidi live with bugs and no make up. I'll probably turn it on again for the same reason. Once they are gone, not so much, as I really don't know who most of the others are.
ha he's too famous. the only people who know who he is are teenage girls. who does he think is watching the HILLS?
Maura,
Your attempt to belittle Heidi and Spencer immediately fell flat when you went with Janice Dickinson. The rest of us are glad to not be watching any of those three...
Heh. Janice is no day at the beach. She vacillates between kind of awesome and completely horrible. But if anyone could take Heidi and Spencer (and his creepy flesh-colored beard) down, she can. Kathy is right. They're vile people.
Given the choice between Heidi and Spencer, and Janice, I'll pick Janice every time, even if she is lying about being the world's first supermodel.
The show caught us by surprise. My husband and I expected to loathe Sanjaya...much to our surprise there is so much more to despise! As a firm believer that you can not truly condem or complain without researching and then come to an informed decision, we watched the entire show and will never watch again. Sandi
I wanted to watch at least the beginning out of morbid curiosity, then started flipping ahead (DVR) because it wasn't even worth the train-wreck fascination. I landed on the scene of Patti's pity party, and it made me so angry the way she's sticking to the same old lies and distortions that I couldn't even appreciate the absurdity of Spencer's declaration that he would have voted for Rod for president, or the Spencer and Heidi of politics line, or Janice's shout out for the truth and her twice voted by the people line. JFC, these people have no idea how Rod and Patti have contributed to the corrupt landscape that is Illinois politics. I had to stop watching before my blood pressure shot through the roof. My hopes for this show are that Patti is the last one standing so she can suffer the longest, and that either Heidi or Spencer (preferably Spencer) are voted off first so the other can suffer alone. I'll have to rely on the perfunctory clip on The Soup for the highlights, because it's Just. Too. Annoying. To. Watch.
Is this show seriously on four nights a week? I might have watched for the train-wreck factor if it were one hour a week, but four hours? Absolutely not.
I cannot wait to see "The Soup" take that "devaluing our fame" comment and run with it. :-)
I cannot wait to see "The Soup" take that "devaluing our fame" comment and run with it. :-)I was thinking the same thing Miranda. Oh how I love Joel McHale!!!
LOL. Heidi and Spencer quit the show? Being replaced by a Baldwin brother (not the good one) and Heidi's sister, whoever the heck she is (not even Spencer's sister, who I know because she was on The Soup last Friday).
Guess I don't have to watch anymore!
You people can't seriously believe for a second that they are really in a "jungle"?? I tuned in the other night just to check it out and it took me all of 30 seconds to figure out they are in nothing more than a glorified movie set!! I'd like to see them dropped on a Survivor island. They wouldn't last 30 minutes!
I tried to watch but after 20 minutes of the show I realize that it was going to be to painful. I thought that Janice would add a little drama but there is no hope for this show. I can't believe I wasted 20 minutes of my life by just watching it.
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