A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

Bad TV Ponderings - High School Reunion

I blame the writer's strike.

We weren't that much of a reality TV household, really. There was the first season of Survivor, and the odd episode of Top Chef, and of course my long-standing love of COPS, which isn't so much a "reality" show as it is an art form unto itself.

So while we were casting our viewing net a little wider, we reconnected with some old favorites (No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain), discovered some mediocre fill-ins (Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares), and hit upon one charity case, namely High School Reunion.

Having fessed up to this, I feel I should present my excuses. First, these people graduated the same year I did (1987), and I must confess no small amount of morbid curiosity regarding relative levels of fatness and hair loss among the cast. Second, they're also from Texas. Granted, Richardson (a suburb of Dallas) is whiter and more affluent than College Station ever was, but Lone Star State solidarity counts for something.

Or it did. Until I started watching these douchebags.

I'm not a complete idiot: I realize that so-called "reality" shows are always edited to make things more interesting than they actually are while not-so-subtly trying to get us to side with certain personalities. So naturally they're going to make the Jock with the recently deceased wife the sympathetic protagonist, while the Drama Queen will - of course - be a drama queen. The Stud "surprisingly" shows glimpses of self-awareness, the Bully is slower to anger, and the Lesbian may only be bi-curious, etc. And I guess it's hard not to lapse into familiar high school territory (drunken hot tubbing, non-penetrating makeout sessions) when you're back with your old chums, but this is the first show to come along in a while that actually makes me resent myself for watching it. And I watch Cheaters.

The thing is, I can't decide if I'm honestly put off by the cast's obvious shallowness or if it's one of those "staring into the abyss" things.

Two of the "storylines" are, admittedly, mildly engrossing. For example, there's the Pipsqueak; one of those late bloomers who came into his own after graduation and wastes no time here hooking up with the Popular Girl he always had a crush on. But as great authors like Thomas Wolfe and...Erma Bombeck...have taught us, wanting something is often more satisfying than having it, and the Pipsqueak proves himself a normal guy in more than stature as he does his best to engineer a poist-coital withdrawal.

Then there's the token Geek, brought into the mix midway through the season, to confront the Bully who terrorized him throughout his teen years. Unfortunately, the prospect of Jolt-fueled vengeance quickly dissipates when the nerd allows himself to be assimilated by the popular clique, undermining the cause of victimized dweebs everywhere. Worst of all, it culminates in his playing golf with them. I almost tore my copy of Dieties and Demigods in twain out of rage (barely in time did I remember it was a rare first edition).

For a while I blamed John Hughes for the ongoing trend of reducing high school to simple personality archetypes, but apparently he wasn't too far off the mark. More likely, the ones that allow themselves to be easily categorized make for better TV.

At any rate, it's comforting to know that the high school lesbians in Richardson had to fake interest in guys just like their College Station counterparts. Specifically, the ones I dated.

I wish I was joking.