Big Brother 10

Ollie and April have (unprotected) sex

Two Big Brother 10 houseguests have joined previous inhabitants of the house by having sex at least twice, and one of those times appear to be having unprotected sex.

Ollie and April, who have been flirting heavily, first consummated their relationship not in a bed, but on a seating area. Since they’re in a public place in the house, the lights are on, so there’s extremely clear footage, although just of bodies moving rapidly under a blanket.

At one point, it seems apparent that they’re having unprotected sex. Around the 3:40 mark, April says, “Oh God. … You have to pull out,” and Ollie replies, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Here’s a clip of some of the heavier content; audio is probably NSFW, unless you work in a brothel:

Earlier today, April and Ollie had sex again, but this time in a bed with the lights off, so it’s filmed with night vision. Once again, the audio is the most extreme part, but it’s particularly good, such as when April says, “Come on me.” Ollie replies, “You want me to?”

related news

People with Truman Show Delusion mental illness think they’re on reality TV

A new mental illness has been identified by Canadian psychiatrists: The Truman Show delusion, named after the excellent, prescient film of the same name, which involves people who think they’re on a reality TV show, even though they’re not.

The psychiatrists, who are also brothers, “could have easily called their new disorder the EDtv Delusion or the Matrix Delusion — both films that refer to an unreal existence— three of the five patients he treated at the storied mental health hospital directly likened their plight to The Truman Show, the 1998 film about Truman Burbank, an affable suburbanite who slowly becomes aware that his every movement is broadcast 24/7 to voyeuristic viewers around the world,” according to The National Post.

“Typically, the Truman Show Delusion is a combination of paranoia, grandiosity and ideas of reference, which means that patients believe they are receiving signals specifically meant for them from a newscast or something like that,” Dr. Joel Gold told the paper.

Dr. Ian Gold said, “The wish for fame is a form of grandiosity, and the fear of threats such as surveillance can bring about paranoia. New media is opening up vast social spaces that might be interacting with psychological processes.”

One patient said, “I realized that I was and am the centre, the focus of attention by millions and millions of people. My family and everyone I knew were and are actors in a script, a charade whose entire purpose is to make me the focus of the world’s attention.”

future shows

The CW, Oxygen, Showtime, Sci Fi, Bio Channel announce new shows, renewals

Several networks have announced new shows and renewals over the past week or so, and those shows range from a weight-loss dance competition to a competition that involves attempting to escape from a locked room.

The CW will air a new series this fall called In Harm’s Way that follows current reality TV trends and “looks at lives of people doing dangerous jobs,” the network says. It’s produced by Pilgrim Films and Television and debuts Sept. 21.

Besides renewing Bad Girls Club for a third season—and expanding its episodes to one hour—Oxygen has ordered Dance Your Ass Off, on which “talented, full-figured contestants who struggle with their weight will dance to unleash their inner thin,” according to the network.

Next year, Showtime will air a reality series that follows the owner of a Colorado gun store and those who buy guns at his establishment, which also includes a shooting range. Most interestingly, it’ll be filmed with “hidden cameras which will only be revealed after the transaction is completed in order to insure a particularly candid and compelling point of view,” according to Showtime. Lock ‘N Load’s six half-hour episodes follow “‘The Shootist’ gun store in Englewood, Colorado, where salesman Josh Ryan is always in full-on pitch mode,” according to Showtime, and it also follows buyers, such as “the new parent who wants to protect his family; the teenager who’s an expert hunter; the 30-something woman who feels a little more at ease with a revolver in her purse and the avid collector who simply has a fascination with guns of all kinds.”

The Sci Fi channel will air Endemol’s Estate of Panic, “large quantities of cash are hidden in a massive estate and seven strangers are invited to find the money” and deal with “terrors that await them,” and Cash or Capture, a “reality competition show that pits a group of contestants against each other in the quest for a cash prize, while being stalked by relentless ‘hunters,’” according to SciFi. Both debut in November 2008.

Sci Fi is also developing three new reality series: Soul Evidence, which follows the woman who inspired NBC’s drama Medium, Allison Dubois, as she “leads a team of psychics, scientists and investigators to solve cold case murders”; Danger Game, which “takes viewers behind the scenes at a secretive organization known as Modern Reality Adventures (MRA) that creates alternate reality experiences for select clients”; and Escape, a competition produced by Magical Elves on which “[t]hree contestants locked in a room must endure a series of physical challenges, decipher riddles and break codes in order to escape” while “their prize money decreases and their anxiety builds while three contestants locked in an identical room also race to find their own way out,” the network says. Finally, it has renewed Ghost Hunters for a fifth season.

The Bio Channel has renewed its true-story telling series I Survived, and has also ordered a similar show, Why I Ran, on which “actual people who have led the police on some of the most dangerous high-speed pursuits ever” tell their stories, according to the network. It has also ordered Female Forces, on which “viewers will ride shotgun with a police department’s female officers and get an in-the-squad car view of what it’s like to be a female crime fighter.”

Bravo

Kathy Griffin

What I’m watching: Bravo’s docudramas Flipping Out and My Life on the D-List

I give Bravo a lot of (well-deserved) shit, but the network remains the most consistent producer of engaging reality TV shows on television today. I probably watch more Bravo reality shows on a regular basis than any other network, although as other networks have caught on and found their own niches, the NBC-owned cable network is facing more competition.

While its competitive series get the most press thanks to their structure and groundbreaking nature, their docudramas are extremely strong, primarily because they deliver both drama and comedy via exceptionally engaging personalities. In its infancy, reality television drew me in because it was fun to virtually hang out with a show’s cast, at least until the casts turned into drunken slut assholes. But I digress.

Two of Bravo’s docudramas recapture that original joy of watching reality TV, and are currently can’t-miss TV for me.

Flipping Out follows obsessive-compulsive house flipper Jeff Lewis and airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET. Jeff’s attention to detail and neuroses are often simultaneously comical and irritating, yet they clearly help him produce the stunningly transformed houses that he’s bought and renovated. Unlike other docudramas, it’s really obvious that Jeff and his crew have actual talent and actually work; they’re not just pretending to do a job for the cameras.

While Jeff can get outrageously bitchy, controlling, and demanding, he’s often joking and mocking himself, but as he transitions from seriousness to outrageous kidding (typically in his interviews), he maintains the same dry, unflinching delivery, which makes what he’s saying all the more compelling, since you aren’t exactly sure he’s kidding.

Those in his life are also strong characters, primarily his buoyant assistant, Jenni; his more level-headed business partner and former boyfriend Ryan Brown; and the show’s breakout star, Jeff’s housekeeper Zoila, who seems to be the only person who is thoroughly dismissive of Jeff’s nonsense. The second season has both become lighter and added more consequence, especially as it chronicled the firing of Jeff’s long-time employee, Chris, and Chris’ resultant split with his wife, Jenni.

My Life on the D-List, which airs Thursdays at 10, is also particularly watchable because of the supporting cast. Like the people who surround Jeff Lewis, Kathy’s staff and family members have grown into strong characters themselves. (Her dad was the show’s breakout star in earlier seasons before he died, and although her wine-drinking mother is still amusing, Maggie seems deflated without her husband.)

Now in its fourth season, the show increasingly comes off as staged, in the sense that most scenes feel like cameras showed up to film the cast in that pre-planned moment, and weren’t just following Kathy around. Yet what happens within those contexts is pretty consistently hysterical. It’s like watching extended versions of Kathy’s stand-up except about more mundane topics.

When real life intervenes, the show really hits its mark. The episodes covering Kathy’s trip to Iraq and the death of her father were exceptionally strong, well-produced hours that justified the show’s Emmy win. When it comes to episodes like that and shows like these, other networks really just suck it.

other shows

Golf Channel’s Amazing Race-like series Highway 18 debuts tonight

Tonight at 10 p.m. ET, The Golf Channel debuts a new competitive reality series, Highway 18. It follows five teams of two who race to challenges across Florida, trying to avoid elimination along the way to earning $100,000 in cash and prizes. Teams of two racing to challenges makes comparisons to The Amazing Race impossible to avoid, so let’s just admit it: based upon the first episode, this is a low-rent version of CBS’ series, and is basically The Amazing Race: Golf Edition.

Still, The Golf Channel’s series makes it clear that The Amazing Race could use an angle like this to freshen things up (although it does not need to be confined to the United States again). All of the challenges both involve playing golf and doing golf-related things, such as answering a trivia question, and none of it feels forced or contrived.

However, Highway 18 also desperately needs the touches of the Emmy-winning show’s producers. Camera operators and crew members are in a lot of shots. Like, a lot, even standing right next to contestants on the green. There are so many it makes you wonder why we don’t see camera operators in every single shot on other similar shows (answer: planning and the skills of the talented crew members). Host Keri Murphy is no Phil Keoghan, and the score’s absolute disconnection from the action makes you appreciate The Amazing Race’s detailed orchestration, even if it is a little overwrought.

The best part comes toward the end of the first episode, as the teams race to complete a hole and race, literally, to that leg’s finish line. It’s dramatic, even if the footage sucks. There’s also a relatively interesting twist regarding eliminations. For golfers who like reality TV, Highway 18 is heaven. For reality fans, the show is like Animal Planet’s cheap-looking and pun-happy Groomer Has It, watchable but nothing spectacular.

The Celebrity Apprentice 2

Omarosa: “I would rather be ABW—angry black woman—than a buffoon”

Having been out of the spotlight for about half a year, Omarosa has found herself back in it—or dragged it over and shined it upon herself, actually—after appearing on Wendy Williams’ new daytime talk show.

The segment starts with Omarosa getting confrontational. “This is not your time to look for your moment,” Wendy says, but of course, that’s exactly what it becomes as Omarosa refuses to show the book she’s promoting—tellingly titled The Bitch Switch: Knowing How to Turn It on and Off—to the camera, first ripping it out of Wendy’s hands. Later, Wendy told Omarosa, “In many ways, you are the stereotypical angry black woman that white America looks at us as.” Omarosa said, “I would rather be ABW—angry black woman—than a buffoon.” (Watch the segment).

Omarosa also goes back to that “you don’t know me, you really don’t” argument that’s basically a confession of her fakeness. It’s just so painfully obvious that she’s playing a role, because she accidentally slips into her normal, intelligent self occasionally. She relishes the attention so much that I almost didn’t post this, because people that desperate for attention deserve none.

After the episode taped, Wendy Williams told the AP, “I wanted to throw her off the set. … Omarosa wished her career was my career. Omarosa is a delusional, D-list, pathetic woman. … I have no reason to invite Omarosa back to the show. That’s done. She had her moment.”

ABC

Big Brother 10

ABC’s High School Musical competition debuts with low ratings, Big Brother down 10 percent

Last night, ABC debuted a reality TV version of its excessively successful High School Musical franchise, but High School Musical: Get in the Picture debuted to the second-lowest premiere numbers of the summer.

While 5.5 million viewers watched its lead-in, America’s Funniest Home Videos, just 4 million people watched the reality show, which airs its second episode tonight at 8 p.m. ET. Variety doesn’t give details, but reports that High School Musical “did well enough among kids but didn’t bring in enough of their parents.”

In the same hour, Big Brother 10 beat ABC’s show and won the hour, but “lost about 10% of its viewers and demo adults from last week,” according to TV By the Numbers. Only 5.77 million viewers watched, down about half a million from last Sunday’s debut.

The Real Housewives

Date My Ex debuts tonight as Real Housewives’ Jo dates men living with Slade

The Real Housewives of Orange County spins off yet another series tonight when Bravo debuts Date My Ex: Jo & Slade at 10 p.m. ET. The series sounds like a hybrid of The Bachelor and the show Jo and Slade were on for two seasons, as it follows Jo as she dates four men who will live with and be tested by Slade. Here’s Bravo’s description of the show’s somewhat convoluted structure:

“In each episode, Jo will go on a series of dates that have been set up by her close friends, Myia Ingoldsby and Katy Metz. But in a bizarre twist, the men must all live with Slade, who has also moved to Los Angeles and remains Jo’s closest confidante. Following their dates with Jo, Slade will grill the guys and voice his opinions on which ones he deems most suitable for his ex. He will also test them in an attempt to find out which ones are there for the right reasons. Jo will choose one suitor from each episode to pass to the next round — in the end, whittling the choices down to that one special guy. Will Jo be able to break from Slade completely and find love again with someone new?”

Critics who’ev seen the show aren’t impressed. The New York Daily News’ David Hinckley asks, “Does anything about this ridiculous situation sound as if it wasn’t staged just so everyone could get on television?” The Boston Herald’s Mark A. Perigard argues that “[t]he twist is so improbable and dumb, it makes ‘The Bachelorette’ seem like a research program funded by the NIH,” while The Los Angeles Times’ Mary McNamara calls the show “a reality show that dispenses with the reality part.”

However, The New York Times’ Ginia Bellafante says Jo’s “deficiencies are trumped only by Slade’s narcissism,” and says while “[t]here is no good reason in the world to watch … there is something vaguely redeeming in its economic chemistry.”