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Some people wonder why I keep ragging on Havrilesky. That uncertainty about where sarcasm ends and honest beliefs begins is one of them. Most writers would write a judgment about programming as vapid as reality shows, and having writ, would move on. More people than I (and better writers than I, in many cases) have wondered why this column keeps returning to repeat the same kind of shows, instead of perhaps sampling other shows.
For instance, why not look at BBC America's Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, a cooking show that features no cooking, only a Brit with a few opinions and a whole lot of bleepable vocabulary? The only thing I've learned about making dysfunctional restaurants work from the series is that contempt and cussing out the owners and the help is all that helps them straighten up. Ramsey waxes poetic about the locations and the city he visits, until he encounters actual human beings. You could call it the R. Lee Ermey School of Labor Relations.
And instead, we get long reviews of reality shows.
