Oh Bachelor Where Art Thou?

I'm going on the offensive.

Who are you to make fun of me just because I love The Bachelor? And The Bachelorette. And Big Brother, Flavor of Love and Celebrity Whore Dash (still in production). I'll admit, I'm often lost by what others like you count as drama. Watching CSI Boca Raton investigators stumble around in the dark just doesn't do it for me anymore. Seriously, there are no F-in' lights in the lab? It's a lab! Marge, and her seventeen facelifts, stuck in eternal midnight blue. Marge Helgenberger is 52 years old.

As long as we're all going to be lulled into lives of working misery, suckered into chasing pride or power and cashing in our dignity for minivans or pats on the back from the youth pastor for laughing at his off-putting knock-knock joke 10 seconds after he justified Almighty God's need to ask Abraham to kill his own son to a six-year-old, we should get something to keep us quiet. Something that can satisfy our need to stare at others.Yes, I'm talking about the real tears of mortals.

And nobody works harder to make real people cry than our reality television producers. So, how do you make people cry without making people feel guilty about wanting to watch people cry? Well, it's not as easy as you might think.

First, you have to start with pretty people. Fit and muscular twentysomethings are preferred, but old irascible veterans work, too.

Then you give them the opportunity to achieve wealth and fame. You know, the things crusty actresses like Helgenberger have killed people for. Then, just stick them all in a maze with only one piece of cheese. If you are really sophisticated, like producers of The Bachelor of The Biggest Loser, you allow the piece of cheese to be love or self-worth. Did you know that when contestants on The Biggest Loser get voted off the show for not dropping enough L-B-Ss they pan to a refrigerator full of sweets topped with said contestant's name to watch the light on the calorie box go dim? Shouldn't the bulb go bright since Mrs. Tummyontv is heading home to eat a cake in misery, you ask? Shhhh. This is drama.

Keep them away from their families. Check. Make them eat bugs. Check. Make them starve and vote each other out and then show them their baby's first steps on video. Action! Elitist like yourself turn to Hill Street Blues and talk about the great writing or the importance of supporting the true craft of acting. That's real drama. Fooey!

The Biggest Loser, better than perhaps any other show, takes reality television to its natural conclusion: suffering is spectacle. King of the Mountain is the only game in town. All pain is justified so long as one big shot gets glorified in the end. It's everything we know.

I like to watch The Bachelor with my wife after she has been slaving at her big-box retailer all day and tell her which blondes I'd pick. Sometimes we'll have lively debates, but for the most part, we agree with each other. We have the most fun when we imagine our own outcomes.

This Bachelor season, we were praying that Brad Womack would get to the end and pick two girls. You know, mix it up. The possibilities for entertainment are endless. This year they didn't even announce who the next Bachelorette was going to be. I guess Michelle was too crazy. Ho hum.

I've talked myself quiet. Go back to your SVU, elitist snobs!

Knock-knock. Who's there? Eternal salvation....