NBC's goals for I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here seem pretty straightforward: 1. Burn off as many hours as possible as cheaply as possible (that's why it's on fo 4-5 hours a week for the next month), 2. Create a hole in the ozone layer directly above Costa Rica exclusively due to Heidi Montag's overuse of aerosol dry shampoo, and 3. To torture some celebrities in the name of entertainment. All of which is fine. It's their network and their Costa Rica, they can run it into the ground if they want to. When you have your own TV network arm of a huge corporation, you can do things differently.
But while NBC has succeeded in their first two I'm A Celebrity goals, they've failed completely on that last one—mostly because there is nothing entertaining about watching two human-shaped stacks of hair gel (Damien Fahey, and something named Myleene) stand on a set in the middle of a Costa Rican jungle and re-cap a show live as you're watching it for two hours. There was a 60-second exchange last night that went something like this:
Hair Gel Stack 1: We're back with more I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here. I'm Damien Fahey, and we're live in the middle of the Costa Rican jungle where we just saw a crocodile.
Hair Gel Stack 2: I'm Mylee whatevers and we sure did, Damien. Where did he go?
Hair Gel Stack 1: [looking at river] Hmmm. Oh, there he is.
[murky shot of purported crocodile]
Hair Gel Stack 2: We better watch out!
Me (at home, nailing planks of plywood to the front of my TV in order to prevent this kind of acidic stupidity from leaking into my living room): [thwack, thwack, thwack]
What's worse is that the two unbearable, superfluous, time-stretching hosts spent the majority of the show trying to convince the audience that "these pampered celebrities are in for a big surprise." In order to believe that statement, you'd have to accept: that Frangela, noted Smoothie salesman Stephen Baldwin, and the withered has-been husk of Lou Diamond Philips are in any way "pampered" in their everyday lives; that non-pampered non-celebs would have an easy time camping out in the hot, bug-ridden Costa Rican jungle for three weeks; and that having people eat gross things on television is in any way a surprise. No one thinks that Sanjaya brushes his teeth with diamond dust and sleeps on a gold bullion bed, Myleene, so calm down with the cushy celeb comeuppance talk.
The basic premise of this show is that the audience would enjoy watching despicable celebrities put their heads in a big tank with six cockroaches. But there's nothing worth despising about most of these people, six cockroaches obviously isn't enough for Heidi & Spencer, and Damien Fahey and Myleene don't have to participate.