I have decided to do a three part series on television from over the past year. I will take a look at the good, or the best television has to offer, as well as the bad, where television isn't necessarily at its lowest, but more or less at its more overrated. But, for now, I will take a look at the ugliest in television over the past year. And since I didn't want to choose one or two FOX reality shows, I decided to group them all into one special grouping! Here is the ugly of 2004.

The Ugly

Every reality show on FOX, excl. American Idol - Playing It Straight? Reality at its lowest. The Swan? Reality at its ugliest. My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss? Fire me, please!! My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee? You're right, I want a divorce. Forever Eden? Forever vanished. The Simple Life? Simply a guilty pleasure. Who's Your Daddy? Who cares? Trading Spouses? Trade this to the graveyard and bring back some actual television. Nanny 911? Call the police, this show's intelligence is missing! The Next Great Champ? You got it, the next great chump. The Casino? Yes, it went bankrupt. The Complex: Malibu? This ain't complex at all: it sucked and it's gone. Stupid Behavior Caught on Tape? Ugh, this speaks for itself. The Rebel Billionaire? I'll give YOU money to get off my TV!! Renovate My Family? Go see Dr. Phil. World's Craziest Videos? World's Dumbest Title! Temptation Island? Probably the most unnecessary revival of the year, topping the Baby Geniuses sequel. Paradise Hotel? Trouble in paradise. The Littlest Groom? Pardon me, I'm getting some cold feet.

That's right. EIGHTEEN failed reality shows. Sure, a few linger on life support, but none have staying power. American Idol remains the biggest of them all. Hopefully FOX will learn from this that reality isn't the answer. So, if you thought my puns were bad, the shows were even worse! Now, let's hear from you? What are the worst of th worst on television?

Is Paradise Falls supposed to be Paradise Hotel? Because that show was HILARIOUS, and it didn't air in 2004 - unfortunately. Same thing with Temptation Island 3 the last episode was in 2003. Although I stopped watching after the first one, and the AUS version was far superior.

I wouldn't really call My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee a failure, it did pretty well for a fox show, especially it's final episode which had like 17 million viewers. Sure the spinoff sucked, but that's no fault of MBFOF. Same thing with The Simple Life, it still draws a lot more viewers than most of Fox's programing. It's still bad television, but not a failure.

For the most part I agree with the rest although Trading Spouses has its moments, the first episode was very amusing with Tammy and her positivism. Also you missed a FOX reality show: My Littlest Groom - which offended almost as many people as Who's My Daddy.

My vote for worst reality show on FOX goes to: The Complex. I watched the series expecting something exciting to happen... but nope, nothing. It was just one big waste of time. At least some of the characters on The Next Great Champ were hateable.

FOX have Millionare sydnrome. Remember when ABC pushed everything in the schedule to accomodate Who Wants to be a Millionare? Milking the shows ratings endlessly till it ran dry and imploded? Indeed, American Idol's days are numbered - look at the UK version, the ratings have slumped over each series and its stars have become less and less successful. A gradual decline, maybe, but theres only so long that people can tolerate this kind of explicit manufaturing.

I don't know why I mixed Falls with Hotel. Paradise Falls was a bad Canadian series a few years back. But, I included Paradise and Temptation, because they were technically in the 2003-2004 season. Either way, FOX has a lot of misses over the past 18 months.

As for My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee, I guarantee if they did that again, it would fail. Just like Joe Millionaire 2 failed. Heck, My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss failed, and it was of the same breed as the original. FOX may have a hit here and there, but they try it again, and it always seems to fall hard. FOX has a lot of originality and creative programs on, I wish they would stick with those and not reality.

Yeah, Fox often tries to make one successful reality show into a franchise and that often fails.
If more people watched the original and creative programs maybe Fox would stick with them. Fox said it's gonna try and revert back to that original and creative stuff, but where oh where am I gonna find my cheesy reality shows?

Don't worry, one may think reality is on life support, but I say it's still going to be a fad for a few years.

I think you should include American Idol

I think us Europeans in general have had to put up with Reality tv for longer than y'all in America, and its only now that the fads fizzling after like 205893 big brothers, 4958392 im a celebrities, 5968396839683 survivors and 49683968230358638583 versions of american reality shows, or the shows themsevles.


When will the torture end!?