Michael Louis Calvillo Must Be Destroyed

Okay, I admit it, I watch ABC’s trainwreck of a reality show, THE BACHELOR (same goes for its sister show, THE BACHELORETTE). Sure, I can play my Man-Card and evoke The Wife. I can shuck the blame. My wife watches THE BACHELOR, so by default I watch THE BACHELOR. And my wife (who’s awesome) would have no problem covering for me. Except that’s not really the truth. You see, my wife loves THE BACHELOR and THE BACHELORETTE – she even reads the gossip magazines for dirt on the contestants – but we, or I, don’t watch the show because she wants to watch it, we watch it because I got her started.

(Evil. Pure evil)

The first season of THE BACHELOR (2002) debuted a couple of years after we got married. If you read yesterday’s post (A Regal Afternoon), you learned that I’m the TV/movie/pop culture maven of the family. Most of the time (there are exceptions here and there) my wife defers to me when it comes to planning what we watch. She has her opinions (vetoing every so often), but since we share similar tastes, she trusts me when it comes to selecting our entertainment. So it went with THE BACHELOR.

We didn’t watch the first or second season. Working and finishing school kept us pretty busy. I’d program the VCR with our staples (MTV’s THE REAL WORLD, Comedy Central’s short lived sketch show THE UPRIGHT CITIZEN’S BRIGADE) and leave it at that. But bits and pieces of THE BACHELOR began popping up on the late night news and invading the cultural zeitgeist. ABC had themselves a hit, and being the pop culture freak that I am, I couldn’t stand not knowing what the hell was going on. By season three I was way too intrigued to pass it up. Michelle was a little leery, but she got hooked pretty quickly. I don’t think we’ve missed a season since. Our daughter even jumped in a few years ago.

I’m not proud, Loyal Reader. In my heart of hearts I loathe the show. It’s evil by design. The first few weeks are too crowded to figure out who’s who, but you hang in to see who makes the cut. Mid-season drags some. The fantasy dates and hometown visits reinvigorate things because you actually start to care about the players, but then, in the end, someone has their heart ripped from their chest and stomped into oblivion. It’s horrible! But I can’t stop watching! I always figure I’ll let it go, yet when the new season starts up it’s impossible not to watch. Why? I began this blog rather defensively. My headline’s subtext screams, “Back off,” or, “Don’t judge me.” It comes off playful in a Real Men Eat Quiche sort of way, but you see, Loyal Reader, this isn’t a declaration of power, it’s not a man making a case for trash TV, it’s a cry for help.

Damn ABC and their insidious brainwashing tactics! What have I done to my family? The monkeys on our backs are fully enraged. Every Monday night they start pounding away… We can’t look away… It’s too late! It’s too late! THE BACHELOR has us!

Quick, watch this Upright Citizen’s Brigade clip before ABC gets its claws into you too!

This entry was posted on July 18, 2011 at 11:21 pm and is filed under Rants, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.