Following years in which we have forced our celebrities to dance, to ice skate, to perform circus tricks, to serve at the whims of Donald Trump, to hurl themselves from diving boards, to endure grueling military training, to suffer the lashes of our stinging criticism when they fail at any of these (and the lashes of our lashes, on Fox’s upcoming Flagellating The Stars)—all to earn the right to still be called a “celebrity”—at last, we are ready to just blast them into space. Two reality shows are being developed around that concept, Sony’s Milky Way Mission and another, as-yet-untitled one from Survivor’s Mark Burnett, so that the celestial objects can be joined by their earthbound equivalents, like Andy Dick.
Burnett’s as-yet-untitled series will award its winner a trip on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, while Milky Way Mission has partnered with the Netherlands’ the Space Expedition Corporation, which hopes to begin sending civilians and people you sort of remember being in movies once into orbit, sometime in 2014. While Burnett has yet to reveal all his celebrities must endure for not having the sort of Ashton Kutcher money where they could just buy a seat on Virgin Galactic and maintain some semblance of dignity, Variety reports that Milky Way contestants will be sent to live in a bootcamp, where they’ll undergo a series of tests from “G-force simulation to extreme underwater challenges” to arguing about who isn’t here to make friends, just like real astronauts.
After proving their mettle and hopefully vomiting on the TV, they’ll be rewarded by being allowed to finally slip these surly, super-mean bonds of Earth, and be free to play at last among their fellow dying stars. “No words to describe it,” the winner will say, agape at the wonders of our universe. “Poetry! They should have sent Kirstie Alley.”
All celebrities are expected to return, ideally in time to sign up for ABC’s Casting The Stars Into The Nearest Volcano.