Sicko

After having watched Good Morning America yesterday and having been impressed by the segment they devoted to Joel Siegel, I decided to give ABC a chance and watch the network last night. I did, through prime time, 8 to 11.

Wife Swap: here two women trade houses and families for two weeks. During the first week, the guest wife must go by the family's rules. During the second week, the guest wife sets the family's rules. Dumb, you say. OK, but maybe entertaining? Imagine this. Wife 1 is a fitness freak and perfectionist, who wins fitness titles, gets up at 3:30 a.m. to exercise and fix high protein breakfasts. Her kids are all super athletes. Her house is perfect. Everyone does their chores. Nothing is out of place. Wife 2 is a dwarf, or to be PC in the show, a "little person". So is her husband. They are not athletes, they are very laid back, they have never exercised in their lives, their house is a bit of a chaotic mess. 'Nuff said.

Extreme Makeover: OK, so my ability to concentrate and my interest began to lag. This appears to be a show about fat people, who are given an extreme makeover and turn into people like wife 1 in Wife Swap. There were a bunch of teenagers, but I didn't follow that plot line (by now the sound on the tv was off); there was a woman from Washington (maybe her name was Heidi), who had lost 100 pounds, but still had the old skin flab, was very depressed, and looked at the start of the show that she hadn't slept in a couple of years and must have been allergic to soap or make up. By the end of the show, she looked like a cover girl, had had surgery to get rid of the fat, ate salads, wore a bathing suit, wore makeup, and had long styled hair. And, of yes, a new nose (her nose was bandaged through most of the show).

Super Nanny (or something like that): now the sound was off, and I probably only glanced at the screen for or five times over the hour. I saw the parents (she was 35 and looked normal; he was 47, and had long blond hair) and the 3 year old (Nathan?), who was shown primarily terrorizing all of the other shoppers in a supermarket. He was clearly more than anyone could be expected to handle, except for SUPERNANNY, who came like Mary Poppins sans umbrella in a taxicab to the rescue. I assume that, over the course of the hour, Nathan turned into a model young gentleman and lived happily ever after, his father had time to go the barber, and Super Nanny went on to her next conquest.

Unbelievable. Sicko.