Diary of a Tuber

My favorite jokes are the ones that start, "What do you get when you cross A with B?" So it felt like a joke when I started to ponder a new genre of television show on the rise: the gimmick show. It's a cross between the game show and reality programming. And I'm not talking about "Survivor" here, though that is the granddaddy of all gimmick shows (improperly categorized as reality programming). I'm talking about smaller, quieter, less expensive shows. These are the ones that don't necessarily call any one network home, that drift in syndication from market to market, hoping to catch eyeballs during soap time or the insomniac stretch after 2 a.m. Some rise to fame and fortune. Others last a dozen episodes before becoming a trivia answer during a "Before They Were Stars" segment.

Gimmick shows trace their roots back to two ancient and defined sub-genres: the courtroom show and the dating show. Both are experiencing a renaissance right now. Judge Wapner's celebrated (and still kicking, though with a different judge) "People's Court" carved out a niche that was somewhere to the left of "Family Feud" and to the right of "L.A. Law." And "The Dating Game" -- in all its incarnations -- was a college viewing sensation. Both the courtroom and the dating show still exist in force, but what I'm most interested in today is the mutant offspring.

Like "Blind Date." You've all seen the show and its supernaturally smug host Roger Lodge. The premise is simple: send two strangers on a date, just like "The Dating Game," but instead of hearing the he-said she-said later, film the entire thing and watch an edited version with "Pop-Up Video" commentary to keep everyone amused. The premise is pure '90s: deconstructionist, post-modern, sarcastic, voyeuristic. The results are addicting, too. While the quality of "contestant" isn't quite Jerry Springer bad, most of these mopes are single for a reason, and the strange locations chosen for first-date activities always make me wonder if twisted behavioral psychiatrists are funding the show.

What makes "Blind Date" different is that nobody wins anything. Everyone loses by letting themselves be taped and made fun of on national TV. The best you can hope for is another chance to annoy the person some television executive hooked you up with, this time without a camera to inhibit your true inner jerk.

Success comes with imitators, of course. Two new ones cropped up this season. The high-profile entry is MTV's "Dismissed," which, like most shows on MTV, is absolutely unwatchable unless you're a teenager with a bitch streak. The premise is the same as "Blind Date," only there's no "Pop-Up Video" commentary, and the Chosen One is set up with two dates, not one. These dates happen simultaneously, and the daters are encouraged to backstab and outdo each other for the contestant's affections. Needless to say, everyone involved is a narcissistic beauty. In the end, the contestant is forced to choose one of his dates ... after all, even on MTV this is a monogamist culture.

The flirt with polygamy is the show's main draw, and its main problem. Fomenting on-screen rivalries is every gimmick show's goal #1 since "Survivor's" first season ate up the nation's attention span. "Dismissed" accomplishes rivalry with zero subtlety (that's .01 less subtlety than "Temptation Island" for those keeping score), and really panders more to the voyeur side of '90s zeitgeist than the post-modern side. There's nothing smart about "Dismissed," and therefore nothing entertaining. If I wanted to see two men trading lame insults for the affections of a random beauty, I'd go to the bar up the street. If I wanted to see two women fight over an Adonis, I'd hit the porno video store one block further up that same street. If I wanted to watch music videos ... well, I'm not sure where to turn for that anymore.

The "Blind Date" wannabe that probably won't burn up the TV columns is a syndicated gem called "Rendez-View." (Check the website for local station information.) The show is a mix of "Blind Date" and "Politically Incorrect," wherein a date is filmed and watched by a panel of four: Greg Proops, Ellen Ladowsky, and two C-level celebrities. Every so often the date is interrupted so that the panel can critique the events and put their faith behind one of the two daters. You can also expect predictions about the date's outcome, the possibilities of future dates, and whether or not the guy is impotent. What really makes this show work is Greg Proops, a veteran of the British "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" and a genius at off-the-cuff cut-downs. His quick thinking and strangely eloquent comedic interludes give the show a dash of class ... did I just say that? Maybe not class, but intelligence to be sure. Even guests such as radio shock jocks and Baywatch babes come across as wise in this well-crafted forum.

Ladowsky is a relationship author who may be funny on the printed page, but makes little impact during the course of the show. Her few comments are received stiffly -- not too funny, and too insightful for a half-hour television show. Luckily, Proops eats up the show's running time, so Ladowsky's shortcomings and stage presence are ignorable. If you're a fan of "Blind Date," I highly recommend tracking down this show and checking it out. Gimmick shows can only raise so high on the quality meter, but "Rendez-View" gets all the way up there.

But what weird and marvelous creatures (besides Judge Judy) have emerged from the courtroom side of the gimmick show? Let's start with Comedy Central's "Let's Bowl!" The show has been running for a few years on stations in Minnesota, and was recently picked up for the big time (hmmm... sounds like another gimmick show I remember, featuring some robots and some bad movies). The show is the brainchild of noted movie spoofer Rich Kronfeld ("Trekkies"), who plays the show's irascible announcer Wally Hotvedt. He and his partner, Chopper (Steve Sedahl) preside over a bowling match between two contestants with a beef. It's the same low-level disagreements you'd find on "People's Court," only instead of producing receipts and being told to shut up by a "real" judge, the two must battle it out on the parquet, with the better bowler getting his or her way.

The comedy of the show is subtle, mostly spoofing the wholesome goodness of the northern heartland. It looks at Lake Woebegon from the other side of the fence, the side where Minnesotans (and Wisconsonites and the six people who live in North Dakota) are real, jaded, and cynical just like the rest of us, so cut the grandma's apple pie crap. While there's no voyeurism involved (unless you count the "Daily Show" style segments called "Inside Bowling"), the show scores high on the deconstructionist, post-modernist, sarcastic meter. In fact, one of the show's only turn-offs is the complete lack of good-natured ribbing in a setting that begs for good-natured ribbing. The bowlers are nasty. The disputes are nasty. Wally's comments cross the nasty line just often enough to make Gramma cover her ears and purse her lips. While Chopper admirably holds down the wholesome center, "Let's Bowl" is one bitter Twinkie. Whether or not you enjoy it depends, I suppose, on your taste buds.

These are just a few permutations of the gimmick show. As "Survivor" season three gets underway (the first episode bored me already), we can expect to finally see the flame-out of high concept "reality" programming, leaving only the backwater syndie cousins to fend for themselves in the cruel new television landscape.

OTHER STUFF

The answer to the sample joke at the beginning of the review is "Abba."

They're not heavy: "Friends" is working its twelve-cheeked butt off to stay afloat. The first two episodes of the show's second "baby" season (anyone remember that Phoebe crap?) depended entirely on self-generated shock moments (as if anyone thought Ross wasn't the father) to get from 8 to 8:30. Can we survive another Rachel/Ross centered season? Whatever happened to a group of six people obsessed with stupid details instead of major life moments? Did NBC learn nothing from "Seinfeld"? This sit-com's dead, and only a nostalgic audience is keeping it alive. When that baby pops out, it should take a respectable spin-off with it, and end these six actors' collective misery.

God save us from FOX: Please come back Bob Costas. The divisional playoffs have been mangled by Fox. First, the most interesting games, from a baseball perspective, were shown on Fox Family, where Dudley Doo-Right and Captain Obvious were allowed to call the games. Seriously. I didn't care enough to take down these two clowns' names, but the play-by-play man kept missing plays because he was prattling on about the spirit of America (or the spirit of a pitcher, or a batter, or a fielder ... he's got spirit, yes he do), and the color guy kept filling me in on facts like "cheese" means fastball and the "black" is the edge of home plate. Really, sir, and what's this strange thing called a 'bunt?' But the killer is regular Fox's insistence on showing both Yankees-Athletics games just so the situation in New York could be exploited for false sentiment and Fox-Is-Patriotic pap. We all care. We all support New York. And we were all hoping to watch the Cardinals squeak past Johnson and Schilling, or the Mariners blow through the Indians (sorry Nick Sterno), or the Astros choke again against the Braves (sport's most celebrated chokers themselves). I want my, I want my, I want my NBC.

Was it all a dream?: The world nearly imploded when USA actually showed a good movie, Leaving Las Vegas. What's next? IFC screening Corman flicks?

What about who?: ABC yanked its one decent sit-com, "What About Joan," which just goes to show that talented comediennes take a backseat to pretty actresses in sit-com land. Or does it go to show that every time I plan on reviewing a show, it gets cancelled? Sorry, Joan Cusack, you had a winner there, and I went and cursed it.