Letters to the Editor

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I Like to Watch
Open wide! It's time for a reality TV checkup, from the controlling, antisocial yuppies of "The Apprentice" to the tedious hippies of "Survivor."
By Heather Havrilesky [2006-04-16]
The letters thread is now closed.

  • idiot t.v.

    since i'll probably go to hell, and they'll make me watch this tortuous boredom there, at least by not watching now, they won't be reruns.

    -- daniel haggard
    Sunday, April 16, 2006 09:42 AM

  • Dex Dexter?

    Wasn't he a character from 'Dynasty'? (I'm too embarrassed to know this, but I just HAD to ask.)

    -- Mango
    [Read Mango's other letters]
    Sunday, April 16, 2006 10:32 AM

  • Heather...

    See link for Dave's epilogue:

    www.ourfieldofdreams.us

    -- cordelia525
    [Read cordelia525's other letters]
    Sunday, April 16, 2006 04:35 PM

  • Excuse me,

    "sort of like college without the gang rapes." What?

    --No Name Given
    Monday, April 17, 2006 08:47 AM

  • About the Apprentice...

    I don't watch it anymore. It became a parody of the original premise. Sad to thing that these are the "best and brightest".

    But I'm not one of those people who criticize the Donald. The guy is so smart and manipulative - it's scary. Think about it.

    Has anyone who gone up against the Donald and won? Where's Ivana Trump, Marla Maples and more recently, Martha?

    If you check out the season of the Apprentice with Omarosa in it, you will see how deftly he manipulated Omarosa to removing the candidate he didn't want - leaving Bill (who got a better assignment anyway) the candidate he really wanted - and making herself the bad 'guy' in the process.

    As for new shows to feed your addiction. There's the newest "Food Network Star" and some others - one on Bravo, I think.

    -- Xema Gold
    Monday, April 17, 2006 09:25 AM

  • Heather the Great

    The relationship rant "The Great Race" was like the ride that launches before you know it, and then you can see for miles. I can see it all now! That's my life!

    Wow!

    -- 5lbbass
    [Read 5lbbass's other letters]
    Monday, April 17, 2006 09:57 AM

  • Survival of the Richest

    It's the newest guilty pleasure. The set is bad, the editing is mediocre and the host is a tool, but for some reason, watching fabulously spoiled rich kids learn about life outside their sheltered existence is a real pleasure. And it's a real eye-opener to hear the kinds of things the super rich are saying behind our backs.

    -- stephdray
    [Read stephdray's other letters]
    Monday, April 17, 2006 09:59 AM

  • Heather's Reality -- Not Mine

    HH writes "...reality TV was the dishy spectator sport of our time, a shared distraction we could delight in together without shame or fear."

    Speak for yourself. Reality shows like "Survivor' have turned TV Land into a bigger festival of prurient voyuerism, echoing the callousness of the Bush administration's social Darwinism. Shame and fear go hand in hand with reality TV and the critics who feast off these soulless contrived shows 95 percent of the time love to say "we love them" as their peer excuse for wasting precious life time. Time I'm wasting now...

    Hey, it's a beautuful day outside...

    -- christian
    Monday, April 17, 2006 12:11 PM

  • Heather, we need an excuse . . .

    Heather, we regard you as infallible and without blemish. So please tell us that you speak your column into a microphone so that software can translate it for you, or that you dictate it to a highly-paid administrative assistant whose grasp of orthography is sub-par. Otherwise, how to explain the spelling:

    " . . . was enough to make you wretch."

    -- bniccum
    [Read bniccum's other letters]
    Monday, April 17, 2006 12:34 PM

  • Reality TV ?

    Is this supposed to be the guilty pleasure for otherwise high-minded salon readers? Who fucking cares? Some of the worst television ever.

    -- Jeff II
    Monday, April 17, 2006 01:51 PM

  • What the?

    Way below, Patricia Schwartz condemns this entire "Left" because Heather Havrilesky expresses here schadenfreude proudly and openly (and with freakish hilarity!) I suppose Schwartz has a point, somewhere, somehow. But, this column isn't about Leftism and Schwartz herself glories in capitalism at its most excessive and ridiculously non-progressive. She is, apparently, a fan of "The Apprentice", enough, at least, to be "creeped out" by one of the contestants. Watching "The Apprentice" and then challenging someone else's "values system" as being anti-human is a little like watching porn and then saying Larry Flynt degrades women.

    -- Joshua
    Tuesday, April 18, 2006 02:29 AM

  • thank you heather

    Heather-

    Keep up the good work-- I love your TV reviews.

    Don't listen to the anti-tv people who write in, I suspect they are secretly watching Gilligans Island reruns.

    -- bnilsen
    [Read bnilsen's other letters]
    Thursday, April 20, 2006 06:23 PM

  • Apprentice

    I don't need to watch Apprectice to see vapid,boring, self important people. I live in a rather affluent suburb of Wash,D.C. and I was just thinking today about what morons most of the people are. The scaring part is that these people run the country. They live in fabulous house, drive Jags and Mercedes and send their kids to $20,000 a year pre-schools. Did I mention how boring and stupid they are? We should all be afraid.

    --No Name Given
    Tuesday, April 25, 2006 06:39 PM

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