The other morning I was getting my coffee and was engaging in some polite chit chat with a colleague’s partner, talking about, kids, bedtime, what you do at night.  You know whatever it takes to pass the time until the cafe people finally holler:  ”bacon and egg muffin and large skim latte” instead of just my preferred signal “Quesera”. Because if they don’t remember my name or if they’ve got new people working, I have to do the walk of shame past all my colleagues who consequently all know, then and there, what dietary abomination I start my day with.

But this morning was taking longer than usual and somehow this guy and I found ourselves somehow on the topic of:  why when you get home you have to decompress from the horrors of the day once the children are finally asleep. Just the usual pre-caffeine babble I engage in most mornings, really.

His opening gambit on this subject was:  ”yes it’s so important to just get some time to read on your own, you know the latest Rohinton Mistry novel and then of course there are the period dramas which [his partner] loves so much”.  So I just nodded and smiled, as though in agreement,  because really that’s not the TV that’s on at our place. We don’t really do “quality TV”.  This whole what-we-do-to-relax-after-work chat had gone on for some time and still no shaming with my breakfast being announced and by this time I was twisting about to see what the hell was going on back there because really I didn’t want to continue with what I watch at night.  In the privacy of my own home.  And which I have no appetite to disclose to a work-related acquaintance.

But then he kept going on about the popularity of English period dramas at his place (“you know, the classics”) and for some reason I just came out with “at least you are talking about BBC productions.  It’s all reality TV at our place”.  He seemed mildly taken aback but said:  ”oh yes, MasterChef – that’s such a wonderful show for the whole family”.  But the thing is, MasterChef is but the slightest of my TV vices.   I will just get straight to it:  Chip and I are hard-core reality TV viewers.

During my 20s and early 30s (so really, not that long ago) I was typically snobbish in my TV viewing.  Back then it was all ABC (Australian equivalent of the BBC or US National Public Radio, um,  except it is on TV) and SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) which really has no functional equivalent in the US or UK – so it is best to say:  it is a publicly funded TV station which broadcasts news in 40 something languages and at night has racy European “cinema” which Chip records and then I have to explain to Fred Ex why Chip has recorded movies with titles like “The Blonde with Bare Breasts”.

I strayed to a limited number of low-rent shows in my 20s,  like when I was first at uni I got hooked on Days of Our Lives and then at law school I used to watch Melrose Place religiously – but Mariska and I watched Melrose ironically Chip.

It was probably just a regression to my adolescence because when I was growing up we never watched the ABC (SBS wasn’t even invented then).  I used to pity my poor classmates who never got to see commercial TV and enjoy The Young Doctors or Chopper Squad.

Strangely, the only time I ever recall Patience objecting to commercial TV was an episode of Cop Shop, an Australian 70s/80s show about well, police, which featured one of the main characters as a stripper.  Patience objected to one particular scene of this character with nipple tassels on, which, in retrospect,  I don’t think was that authoritarian or even that Catholic.  I mean, if iCarly starts featuring that kind of content I might confiscate the remote control too (not that Patience had access to a remote control, as they weren’t invented then either).

But now, what with cable and IQ (Tivo to the Americans), we spend approximately 3.5 hours each night watching TV and, as a percentage, the dominant genre (if it could be described as such) is, well, it is reality TV.  So yes, Chip and I are really reality TV whores.

I blame Fred Ex.  I remember reading somewhere shortly after Fred Ex was born that a mother’s IQ drops on average 25 IQ points after giving birth.  Whether those points are ever regained remains a mystery to me, but in my case, I suspect not.  Especially if you are watching 3.5 hours of reality TV per night.  If pregnancy takes 25 IQ points from a woman’s IQ, I think there is at  least an additional 1 point squandered per reality TV episode watched.  Pretty soon I am going to be minus Mensa range.  And that doesn’t even take into account the trashy mag reading.  It’s amazing with all the Veuve added into the mix that I am still a functioning professional.

The first reality TV show I ever watched religiously was the pioneer reality TV show flag bearer –  The Real World.  That was 1994.  But as it was when I was nannying Il Diavolino Marco in Perugia and was one of the few shows in English I could access, I think that was defensible.  What was probably not so defensible was, en route to see Chip in New Orleans after a long and wine-filled flight from London Heathrow, approaching my favourite housemate at Dulles Airport (he had gone on the show because he was HIV positive and thought it would be a good chance to provide educational moments) and gushingly assuring him that he was a wonderful role model for hispanic gay men – none of which I identify as.  And which he really took with remarkable composure and grace.

My first post Fred Ex reality TV show watching I would like to characterise as “highbrow”.  Mariska and Cat got me addicted to The Amazing Race when we went away on holidays once.  And what is there not to love?  You get to see the world and point excitedly when the teams go somewhere you have been.  But mostly you just enjoy criticising them for their idiocy.  Notwithstanding the ever-present schadenfreude it is actually educational I have persuaded myself.    Sure, none of the “traditional cultural activities” seems legitimate.  I mean, how many times have you seen Sydneysiders sprint from Circular Quay to Hyde Park to ask a “sheila dressed in an Aussie Cossie where the ankle biters are”?  (Official translation:  ”ask a woman dressed in an Australian flag bathing suit (lolling about with no beach or pool in sight) where the children are”).

How many times, Phil, HOW MANY?

And when do you ever see locals being forced to eat 5kg bowls of spicy goulash while demented fiddlers torment them until they vomit the whole lot back up?  Not often in my experience.

But still The Amazing Race seemed to me superficially enlightening and plus there was no cursing on it, so we thought Fred Ex could watch it with us and, well, travel the world.  And Mariska and I texted each other the whole way through it (we had “racing nights”), which I like to think was a precursor to live blogging reality TV shows, minus the audience.

During that period, I used to say, with an air of superiority, reminiscent of my TV snobbery of my 20s and 30s, oh I don’t watch reality TV.  Just The Amazing Race.  But these days, I tend to look on The Amazing Race as the Shakespeare of my TV viewing.

And there is a consistent pattern as to how I become enmeshed in these shows.  Chip says for example:  ”oh Flavor Flav has his own reality TV which is about to start in Australia where he is looking for a wife/girlfriend and he was in Public Enemy ["one of the first political rap groups"] so we have to watch it”.  Predictably I then object vehemently and say I don’t want to watch what will be a waste of my time (and possibly IQ points).  Then he starts watching it, I whine through the first through episodes. And then inexplicably I am completely suckered in.  And kind of co-dependent with him.  And then I start initiating viewing reminding Chip that “isn’t Flavour of Love on tonight?  It’s set to series link isn’t it?  Are we watching Flave and Punkin tonight?”

The other week (after I started this post) I even discovered that my work Christmas party this year boasts a reality TV theme.  This is going to be the first such party I have attended since 1996, because, unlike other years where I have had zero inspiration for costumes, this year presents an abundance of opportunities.   I could get hair extensions and locate and then badger a 6ft 10in African-American man to accompany me and go as Khloe Kardashian from Khloe and Lamar.

Or I could keep eating bacon and egg muffins and go as Ruby.

Chip has even suggested that my ideal career is a reality TV creative consultant as I seem to be able to foreshadow those twists in reality TV that now seem mandatory to lure us back in for another season of watching the same “real” people who are just variations on a theme.

I mean how many teams of blonde sisters or twins or cheerleaders or models or actresses has The Amazing Race had?  I would suggest there has been one team that meets at least one of those criteria at least once every season since series 4.  Some seasons I think there has been a team which meet all of the criteria above.

When I first started this post I was going to put in a list of all the reality TV shows I watch on a regular basis with great enthusiasm, but then it just started to resemble the Wikipedia list on reality TV and really I struggle to see why anybody would even bother reading that list.  Not that there is a Quesera paywall or anything, but really you’re paying with your time, and I would like you to come back so so I just didn’t want to do that.  After all, what all these shows about is a journey.  And a Wikipedia list just doesn’t do that for me.

So instead of describing the siren song of Tommy Lee Goes to College or Ocean’s Deadliest Catch or how BBQ Pitmasters or Celebrity Apprentice or My Fair Brady or (refer to Wikipedia list) have toyed with my affections, this is instead a much abbreviated list of my favourite reality TV shows.  Describing my own journey – to that prevailing 21st century destination – not into darkness but unbridled ignorance.

First up Beauty and The Geek, primarily because we’ve just finished this season’s first makeovers.   The Australian version of this show has, shock twist, a male beauty and female geek for the first time.  Both of which I foreshadowed some time before it happened (in either Australia or the US).  I am just hanging out for the next makeover episode, because last year there were 2 bona fide hot guys revealed once they ceased to be so hirsute and got rid of those 70s brown framed glasses and matching tweed suits.  I have finally concluded though that they must be dressed from a wardrobe department because there is simply not enough tweed in this world to kit out 3 dozen geeks.  This year it is particularly compelling because of one of the Geeks, who is called something like Bendeguz. Bendeguz has one of those moustaches which twirls all the way up to his eye level and consequently results in him looking like he is a circus ringmaster.  Possibly an indicator of geekiness but then again it could also just be garden variety insanity.  Anyway the thing about Bendeguz is that Chip insists that he works in a local patisserie which kind of intrigues me because HE IS ON THE SHOW BECAUSE HE IS A GEEK PROFESSIONAL HISTORIAN.  NOT A SHOP ASSISTANT.  So what the fuck is he doing at the patisserie?  Anyway, I like this show in particular because I can answer both the Beauty AND Geek questions during the elimination round.  Surprisingly, this does nothing to assuage my conviction that I am now down in the 60s IQ range.  Or worse.

Next there is Celebrity Rehab and Sober House – these are 2 separate shows but as they both feature Dr Drew Pinsky, I am combining them because he is kind of annoying (and Chip is severely limiting word length).  These are shows where E list (not E! Channel) “celebrities” attempt to overcome their addictions (drugs, alcohol, sex – no gambling – not yet – next season will it feature the Pokers Lounge at Panthers Leagues Club?).  Anyway, the vomiting and detoxing and breakdowns are all graphically documented with Dr Drew’s smug omniscient narrations.  Mostly I have never seen any of these people before Chip demands we watch the shoes.  I mean never. But nonetheless I am completely sucked in:  ”What happened to Amber Smith?  Is her mother really co-dependent?  Was she really an escort?  Is she transgender? Chip have you set it to series link yet?  CHIP?”

Then of course there is MasterChef Australia – last season this show “united” us as a family and we made a 5 nights a week commitment to watch it.  By the end of the season I was completely exhausted by the tension and challenges.  And I was just lying on the sofa watching it.  It’s not even like it inspired me to make anything. Other than perhaps coffee on a weekend if Chip refuses to do so.  But after I put the kibosh on Chip auditioning for it last year, he wouldn’t watch it at all  this year – except to loudly express his displeasure at the stupidity of the whole season.  So it’s lost its gloss somewhat.

This is possibly the one I am most reluctant to confess to – Ladette to Lady.   We (I?) have sat through multiple seasons of this show – in its UK, Australian and US incarnations.  Just what the magic of this show is that has seen me waste probably 60 hours (excluding the reunion shows, when you can see just how far the “ladies” have fallen back into their previous crack and exotic dancing ways – mostly a lot) I really just cannot fathom.  It can’t just be for the sake of mere mockery.  Because every season I have cried at the “graduation” ceremonies.  This is the ceremony when the final 3, who have miraculously managed to avoid vomiting into Mrs Harbord’s floral arrangements during one of the mandatory floral arrangement “classes” and who have likewise resisted striking Mrs Shrager (which in some instances may be justifiable), float down a grand staircase, in white debutante dresses, the tattoos cleverly camouflaged by a professional camouflage artiste and the most unladylike piercings not quite visible.  And then one of them is pronounced a “lady”. There is something about this show that gets me.  Even Donald Trump buying the US version and oddly installing a former Miss Universe who had had her fair share of ladette moments (cocaine perhaps?  Or is that too high-brow for a true ladette?) as the “host” did not dim its appeal.  And yet I still remain unclear just quite what that appeal is.  Perhaps I could pitch that as a premise to my own reality TV self-discovery journey?

And of course Wife Swap (US and UK).  I just love when they “swap” and the wives get to overturn the juntas (of the other wife’s husband’s rules) under which they’ve been chafing for a week and instead decide that, no, the children will no longer be beaten with that tool known as a “whacker” conveniently hung behind each child’s door and, yes, the husband must cease the unnatural relations with the barn animals.

They’ve yet to do a series in Australia but Chip and I have discussed applying for it.  I am just not sure we would make good TV, quality or otherwise, if we were accepted.  The only rule I can think Chip that would come up with for his swapped wife?  No rules.  Just permission to watch the only reality TV shows I really won’t countenance:  World Cyber Games: Ultimate Gamer.  Yes, it’s a reality TV show about people, well, people playing video games.  I live that reality every night of my life.  Why the fuck would I want to watch it on TV as well?  It is like a play within a play when it’s on, especially if Fred Ex is simultaneously playing games on the computer.  In addition, Chip would make the swapped wife watch America’s and Australia’s Next Top Model, Ice Pilots, Flying Wild Alaska and Jersey Shore.  These ones are where I draw the line.  Even those of us in minus Mensa have to have some standards.