This past TV season's scripted-drama revival has finally put reality television back in its proper place: in the dead of summer, broken up into short-run replacement series. Over the next three months, the six major networks and a slew of cable outlets will be scheduling—or, as the uncharitable might have it, "dumping"—new reality shows that probably all looked like ratings bonanzas back in the halcyon days when Joes named Average, Millionaire, and Schmo all walked the Earth.
Ironically, though, a genre often fades just when it's starting to stretch a little. The six summer replacement reality series below—and the dozens more that The A.V. Club will likely dial up over the long, hot months to come—are a little more intriguing than the common dating or fishbowl show. Here's how they stack up:
Hell's Kitchen
(Fox, Mondays at 9 p.m. ET)
Premise: Chef Gordon Ramsay puts 12 would-be cooks through a culinary boot camp, berating them, belittling them, and drafting grueling cooking challenges in order to find the one who deserves his or her own restaurant.
Humiliation factor: Super-high. Ramsay is all about breaking people's spirits so he can build them back up again, though the first few episodes of Hell's Kitchen have featured precious little positive reinforcement, and a whole lot of Ramsay shoving dishes of food into contestants' chests while screaming, "This looks like a dog's dinner! Do it again!"
Insight into the human condition: The last shall be first. Salt-of-the-earth type Ramsay clearly has more empathy for working mothers who've rarely set foot in a restaurant than for a guy who introduces himself as an "executive chef."
Summary: This is sort of a mega-reality show, combining the genre's "ragtag bunch of nobodies gets whittled down" game-show side with the "look how ordinary people behave under stress" psychological-experiment side, plus a sprinkling of the "here's what real work looks like" documentary side. Hell's Kitchen is a sublime guilty pleasure; it only gets knocked down a peg for not explaining why its restaurant's stylish patrons eat at a place where they receive lousy food, slow service, and insults from the proprietor. Had Hell's Kitchen delved into the customers' stories, it could've encompassed another kind of reality TV as well: "good-looking people getting punk'd."
Fire Me… Please!
(CBS, Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET)
Premise: Former MTV VJ Dave Holmes hosts a cross between his old network's Boiling Points and his new network's Big Brother. In two half-hour segments, two contestants start a new job at the same time and have until 3 p.m. to get fired. The one who gets fired closest to 3 p.m. without going overtime wins $25,000.
Humiliation factor: High. Never mind the contestants, who spend the day behaving like under-medicated children, or the clueless employees, whose faces freeze into a permanent wince. The real humiliation is reserved for the viewer, who deserves a prize for sitting through one of the most excruciating hours in recent television history.
Insight into the human condition: Though Office Space already demonstrated this principle to infinitely funnier effect, Fire Me… Please! proves that it's hard to get canned, especially when employing the "death by a thousand paper cuts" method encouraged by the show. Supervisors are willing to give new employees the benefit of the doubt, even if it means putting up with a few petty annoyances. Of course, none of the contestants thinks to simply tell the boss "Fuck off!" at 2:59 p.m., which would spare everyone some needless discomfort.
Summary: Perhaps it's foolish to expect better from the producers of The Littlest Groom, but Fire Me… Please! all but confesses how unfunny it is by prodding viewers along with a disembodied laugh track. Um… where's the studio audience?
30 Days
(FX, Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET)
Premise: Lifting the high-concept idea from his documentary hit Super Size Me, affable leftist Morgan Spurlock conducts 30-day experiments in empathy. In the first episode, Spurlock and his fiancée Alexandra Jamieson perform a mini-Nickel And Dimed stunt by trying to live for 30 days on minimum-wage jobs. Future episodes feature a Christian hosted by a Muslim family in Dearborn, Michigan, and a homophobe plopped in San Francisco's Castro district.
Humiliation factor: Low. Catchy premise aside, 30 Days' commitment to reality sets it apart from just about every other reality show. Though his conclusions are a little predigested, Spurlock wants to create enlightening and ultimately dignifying experiences that teach people how the other half lives. Hardships are common: In the first episode, Spurlock and Jamieson move into an ice-cold apartment above an abandoned crack house, subsist on a diet of rice and beans, and wait hours in the cold for the bus to take them to menial, backbreaking jobs. These conditions bruise them, humble them, and occasionally put a strain on their relationship, but they rarely have reason for embarrassment.
Insight into the human condition: The "working poor" is one of those designations that shames anyone who believes hard-working, law-abiding citizens are entitled to a piece of the American dream. The country is teeming with them, but when's the last time they got any air time? While it's true that Spurlock and Jamieson are only playing poor for a month, their adventures lead to countless insights on the tragic lapses in the health-care system, the pitfalls of living paycheck to paycheck, and the touching generosity of ordinary people who step up when there's a tear in the safety net.
Summary: Not since Michael Moore's TV Nation has a show rallied so passionately for a leftist political agenda—and on one of Rupert Murdoch's networks, no less. Its concept may hamstring it over the long haul, but 30 Days is more austere and substantial than Moore's show was, and it has a sense of humor, too. Time will tell whether Spurlock is capable of arriving at conclusions rather than telegraphing them in advance, but for now, he's a voice in the wilderness.
Dancing With The Stars
(ABC, Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET)
Premise: Semi-stars Rachel Hunter, John O'Hurley, Trista Rehn, Joey McIntyre, Kelly Monaco, and Evander Holyfield pair up with professional ballroom dancers to show how well charismatic amateurs can master the likes of the quickstep and the samba.
Humiliation factor: Minimal. You don't put Evander Holyfield in a competition like this without hoping for at least some embarrassment, but the point of the series isn't to trip the celebrities up—it's to give them a chance to display heretofore hidden talents for dance. It's pretty charming.
Insight into the human condition: Women have a tougher time of it than men. While the male celebrities mostly make moon-eyes at their pro partners while staying out of their way, the women have much more twirling and high-kicking to do. It brings to mind the old comment that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backward and in high heels.
Summary: It's fun to watch people with somewhat familiar faces dance, but not so much fun to attempt to judge how well they did, which is the only real problem with this otherwise highly watchable program: The judges do a poor job of explaining what good dancing is, and the cameras do a poor job of showing it. Still, this is bright and breezy entertainment, in a throwback Circus Of The Stars kind of way.
The Cut
(CBS, Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET)
Premise: Sixteen fashion-damaged contestants compete for an opportunity to design their own line for fashion giant (and giant creep) Tommy Hilfiger, who chillingly describes his clothing corporation as a "global lifestyle brand."
Humiliation factor: Moderate. The group challenge in the first episode—designing Hilfiger billboards on the hot corner of 50th and Broadway in Times Square—seems a reasonable test of the contestants' resourcefulness and creativity. But from the moment Hilfiger introduces himself by quietly sniffing around their ensembles like a police dog, it's clear that he's going to put the "fascist" back in "fashionista." In the "Style Forum," the sterile space where blame gets passed and a player gets cut, Hilfiger treats his overeager hopefuls like the interns responsible for his bad coffee.
Insight into the human condition: If your boss is an egomaniac, sycophancy always pays dividends. When one contestant comes in dressed head to toe in Hilfiger clothes and accessories, Hilfiger gives him a nod and praises him for savvy business sense. In the end, the boss picks the winning billboard primarily because of a design element that reads "TOMMYNY," with "my NY" standing out in bold letters.
Summary: The Cut could never be compared to NBC's reality sensation The Apprentice. Sure, both shows are about people vying to work for an iconic entrepreneur with a multi-billion-dollar corporate empire, and both end with contestants arguing their case in front of the boss as he peppers them with prosecutorial questions. But Donald Trump says "You're fired," while Hilfiger says "You're out of style." Big difference.
Hit Me Baby One More Time
(NBC, Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET)
Premise: "Where Are They Now?" musicians of the '80s and '90s—like A Flock Of Seagulls, Arrested Development, Tommy Tutone, and Vanilla Ice—perform their best-known songs as well as covers of recent pop hits, in an effort to convince a studio audience that they deserve a second chance at success.
Humiliation factor: Fairly low. Aside from the shameful spectacle of former hitmakers still gasping for the spotlight long after their days are done, Hit Me mostly presents accomplished musicians who know how to play.
Insight into the human condition: Former hitmakers still gasp for the spotlight long after their days are done.
Summary: The first half of each Hit Me episode is kind of a drag, dominated by fairly rote versions of songs that everyone's heard far too many times. The second half is more intriguing, as the likes of The Motels and The Knack try to make songs by Norah Jones and Jet conform to their personal styles. The show gets bonus points for retaining Vernon Kay, the affable and enthusiastic host of the UK version, but his brief summaries of the performers' careers are less than satisfying in the wake of VH1's Bands Reunited, which does better at getting to the heart of why an artist rises and falls. Kay's good, but he's no Aamer Haleem.