In this new recurring column, we tackle some of today’s biggest… or at least most interesting… … or at least vaguely interesting to us… questions. This week, we ask…
… has reality TV run out of pretty people? That’s the only explanation we can come up with to explain some of the casting that has hit our TV screen of late. Take, for example, JERSEY SHORE. Yes, those crazy kids are good for train-wreck TV, but surely there must be some desperate young people out there who are both willing to make fools of themselves on national television and attractive… right? Sure, Sammi’s pretty, but that is more than counterbalanced by the horror that is Snooki. And come on, there must be at least one guy who has a killer bod and isn’t the male version of a butterface!
Then again, maybe not.
After all, ABC’s recently concluded second season of TRUE BEAUTY featured a cast who might have been acceptable were the show titled TRUE NOT-QUITE-HAWT-BUT-TRASHY-IN-AN-AFTER-10-DRINKS-YOU-MIGHT-CALL-THEM-A-BEAUTY. Aside from Taylor, who seemed the inevitable winner (both as far as looks and personality) from the start, the rest of the contestants had a look that indicated they’d have been better suited for a show called TRUELY DELUSIONAL or even TRUE CRAZIES.
Even BIG BROTHER, which has pretty much forsaken any attempt to cast a multi-generational cast in favor of people who were obviously selected for their dramatic and aesthetic appeal, has failed to deliver in the hottie department. Things looked promising when first we met Hayden and Brendon, but then the former opened his mouth and the latter met Rachel. Britney is cute, and Lane has turned out to be an unexpected treat, but that’s pretty slim pickings in a house full of people who are gonna spend the entire summer half naked!
When it comes to summer programming in general and reality in particular, it’s been proven over and over again that we aren’t all that picky. But we do have at least some standards, and googly-eyed guido Pauly D ain’t cuttin’ it. If the casting folks don’t step up their game, we’ll be forced to take drastic measures… like going (shudder) outside and heading to a park in order to look for bathing beauties ourselves! 
