Welcome to silly season.
It’s time for the goofiest of reality shows, the weakest of the summer substitute dramas and the repeat of an awful Tori Spelling TV movie that was excoriated when it first aired in 1996.
How low must we go to avoid stressing our summer-vacationing brains?
A new reality show for summer, “Hitched or Ditched” on the CW, launches at 9 tonight, locally on KWGN-Channel 2. In the latest humiliation spectacle from schlockmeister Mike Fleiss (“The Bachelor”), six couples from across America who are said to be at a “crossroads” in their long-standing relationships, are given a deadline. They have one week to either commit to a wedding or call the whole thing off.
First, imagine being “nominated” to this spectacle by a supposed friend or family member. The network invites meddlers to nominate couples for whom they believe “it’s either time for the couple to tie the knot or break up.”
Next, imagine putting your relationship to the test on national television. (At least here, on the CW, not many people would find you.)
The potential for humiliation is right where reality TV likes it to be, in cringe range.
Also at 9 tonight, Lifetime replays “Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?” — the movie whose title became the descriptor for a whole subset of exploitive, anti-female TV movies. And something of a bad joke. It marked a low point for TV movies and didn’t do anything to help Spelling’s reputation (she partly redeemed herself with “Scary Movie”).
Even Tori Spelling watchers won’t want to sit through this formulaic mess.
My, but Tori’s busy tonight! She also pops up on the season premiere of “Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood,” at 9 p.m. on Oxygen. Can you believe it’s the fourth season, now venturing into the perils of motherhood? This is a girl who assumes everyone pays $200 for a T-shirt and revels in appearing out of touch on TV. As the daughter of super-producer Aaron Spelling, her worldview was skewed well before she landed in the original “Melrose Place” and “Beverly Hills 90210.” Now she’s having the last laugh, living out loud via “reality” television.
That brings us to ABC’s wet-body contest, “Wipeout,” which has its season premiere Wednesday, at 7 p.m. on KMGH-Channel 7. The mind- numbing summer time-waster comes complete with new obstacles (the “Bridge too Far”) and old reliables. Contestants continue to fall off the show’s favorite “Big Balls” into the mud, and millions of Americans can be counted on to watch.
Finally, a goofy new summer drama from Fox, “Mental,” offers a main character with an offbeat (and illegal) approach to being a therapist. Some will find it worse than goofy, since it misrepresents the role of doctors in dealing with mental patients. In the same way TV’s rule-breaking rogue cops are held up as heroes, this therapist unrestricted by rules or ethics is presented as the only one who can truly connect with the mentally ill patients. The unorthodox doc can break into patients’ homes, trick people into sharing their files and strip naked along with the seriously ill patients. Somehow he succeeds while his more rigid bosses fail. What a special knack he must have. Hope he has insurance to go with it.
“Mental” is an example of how the networks are saving money with international co-productions. The show, starring Chris Vance and Annabella Sciorra, was shot in Bogota, Colombia, produced with foreign partners, tested overseas and then sold back in the U.S. The pilot gets another play Friday at 8 p.m. on KDVR- Channel 31.
Not good, just silly. Because it’s silly season and the networks think you’re ready to strip down, pour a cold one and sink to the level of summer TV.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
