"Very Special Episodes" Pt. II

OK, I never made it back to finish commenting on the "very special" episode of Little House the other day, but the developments of the last couple of days have led me to an epiphany of sorts--reality programs are the 21st Century version of the "very special episode".

I came to this conclusion after it was revealed that Jon and Kate Gosselin are separating. Like, yeah...And of course, they made this announcement on a "very special" episode of their show to about 10 million of their closest friends!

In the old days, heady social issues like divorce, rape, drugs, racism, etc. were explored on one of the top-rated family-oriented sitcoms or dramatic series (hence, my Little House flashback). Usually, the set up was that an obscure minor character or a guest star would take center stage for the purpose of explaining the ways of the world to impressionable TV-watching youngsters in 30 to 60 minute intervals. Some notable examples:

• Very special "Diff'rent Strokes" when Arnold's friend Dudley is molested by the candy store owner
• Very special "Facts of Life" when Natalie decides to sleep with her boyfriend Snake
• Very special "Cosby Show" when a colleague of Cliff's reveals his daughter's drug use
• Very special "Different World" when the basketball star tries to date rape Freddie
• Very special "Good Times" when JJ's prom date is a dope fiend
• Very special "Fresh Prince" when the Banks family joins old friends in rebuilding LA after the riots
• Very special "Happy Days" when the only black kid in town joins Richie's band

On some rare occasions, there was the very, very special episode, wherein the central characters experienced various life-altering transitions:

• Very special "Golden Girls" when Blanche realizes she is going through menopause
• Very special "Roseanne" when Roseanne gets a breast reduction
• Very special "Blossom" when Blossom gets her period
• Very special "Full House" when DJ has her first kiss

(Yep, I watched that much TV growing up).

Unfortunately, there are very few sitcoms these days, so reality TV has had to pick up the slack. In lieu of laugh-tracks, dramatic music cues, and special commentary by the cast, we have the real-life train wreck of the Gosselins (or the Hogans, Danny Bonaduce, or any of the early episodes of MTV's The Real World). If you favor celebrity or political dysfunction, there is always Vh1, E! True Hollywood Story, or 24-hour cable news.

As much as I enjoy mocking the melodramatic very special" episodes of my youth, I have to admit that I miss them because as reality TV has proven, real life is stranger than fiction. Make-believe drama requires no emotional investment because the people are just characters, the situations are contrived, and between the reactions of the studio audience and the guest-star credits, we get reminded that this is just a TV show. The following week, Arnold will have hatched a new scheme to avoid the Gooch; Tootie will have created that ridiculous paper mache bust of Jermaine Jackson; Rudy will imagine her family as two-dimensional fairy tale characters; Freddie will continue to be a hippie flake; JJ will declare something "Dynomite"; Carlton will still dance awkwardly to Tom Jones; the Fonz will jump the shark; Blanche will continue to be an old slut; the Connors will still be poor; Joey will respond to everything with 'woah'; and Uncle Jesse will still have his mullet.

However in real life, the Gosselins might actually get divorced and ten people will be directly impacted. Of course real people get divorced everyday, but we usually do not get to see the uncoupling in living color. There is already speculation that this could lead to a post-divorce spin-off show.

Really...

Which just makes me long for the drawn-out soap operatic disintegration of fictional marriages made in hell such as Ross and Emily on a very special "Friends"; Grace and Leo on a very special "Will & Grace"; Frazier and Lillith on a very special "Cheers"; Niles and Maris on a very special "Frazier"; etc.

When the Freaks Come Out

I've been thinking about reality shows a lot lately (not because I want to star on one, but just because the scandals that attach to the so-called stars are unavoidable). Specifically I have given considerable thought to both the Gosselin family soap opera and the rumors about Susan Boyle that unveiled themselves earlier this week.

First, I want to address Susan Boyle, since it is relatively easy to determine why she finally had a public meltdown. Some people are not supposed to become famous and clearly this woman is one of them. Sure, she is very talented and maybe it seemed like a nice idea at the time--get her to compete on a talent show so that she could share her gift with the world. But this poor lady has gone from obscurity to infamy in less than the time it took Michael Jackson to go from black to whatever the heck he is now...

And actually, that is an apt comparison--Michael wanted fame and fortune, so he worked for it, got it, enjoyed it and then squandered it. Most people who seek fame understand the downside to their quest. Failure is a part of the bargain. It isn't clear that Ms. Boyle wanted to be famous. She simply wanted to sing a duet with some famous British singer. But when it got to the point that she was doing interviews with Oprah, someone should have considered what would happen if this woman really unleashed all of the stuff she's kept buried all these years in her little Scottish village. Did anyone ever ask themselves why this 48 year old woman lived by herself and had never been kissed? If you consider that it might be because she is unstable, it isn't as heart-warming as it might seem.

So as much as I like Cinderella stories, this one is more likely to end up with her as the subject of a True Hollywood Story than her living in some Hollywood mansion with Prince Charming. (And surely Simon Cowell is no one's idea of a Prince Charming!) How can she win and not be affected? Could she lose and return to a relatively normal life? Perhaps. I think a better question is to inquire whether she still hasn't been kissed even after all of this attention...

Then there is the Gosselin family train wreck brought to us courtesy of TLC.

I really cannot call myself a fan of this show, but when I have seen it, I cringed whenever Kate ordered Jon to do something as if he was one of the kids. I laughed whenever The Soup lampooned Jon's apathy because, frankly, I thought he deserved it. Anyone who would willingly expose themselves this way was simply asking for the ridicule that resulted.

However, this week, I began to wonder if something more sinister was at work. These people became tabloid fodder in the last six weeks because Jon supposedly stepped out on his wife. It just so happens that the season premier of their 5th season was this week...and these two idiots agreed to continue filming while in the midst of an obvious marital crisis? Are we supposed to feel sorry for them?

I vote no because all of these "take a look inside my family" reality shows are nothing more than freakshows anyway. The average family of two kids, a dog and a Volvo are unlikely to be featured. Little people like the Roloff family, families with more than 10 kids like the Duggar family, celebrity couples and has-beens get reality shows. I do not want to imply that the Roloffs, the Duggars or even the Gosselins are freaks like the fictional Addams or Munster families. But our fascination with them has very little to do with the mundane day-to-day stuff their shows highlight in each episode.

Of course the photogenic Gosselins are intriguing, despite the fact that Kate is a deeply insecure woman and Jon is an apathetic and emotionally detached man. For all of its pretense, this show has never been about the well-being of their eight children--it has been about these two incompatible people who were trying not to kill each other. Face it, we watched because we knew it was abnormal to have eight children and not go bonkers. The show that aired on Monday was simply the payoff JK8 fans had been waiting for...they finally cracked!

So onto the next season of freaks...