SO IS THIS META-META-REALITY? Folks 'round these parts have already blogged endorsing Joe Schmo 2, but perhaps because this week's new episode (which premiered last night) had a time slot shift that was poorly promoted, nothing on this week, so I must pick up the slack.
Of course, the basic premise of the show is brilliant--two unsuspecting dupes who think they're on a "Bachelor"-esque reality show, but don't realize that everyone else on the show (from the host through the "bachelor" and "bachelorette" right down to the other contestants) is an actor playing a character.
What's actually happened is perhaps even more brilliant. Though "Joe Schmo" (Tim) has bought into such ridiculous things as a contest involving the lovely bachelorette "Piper" taking turns eating food from each male contestant's "furry sack," "Jane Schmo" (Ingrid Wiese) has picked up on all sorts of little things--some that were avoidable (a character who's portrayed herself as the daughter of an overprotective father suddenly confessing ON CAMERA that she starred in a porn video, and WAITING TILL THE CAMERAMAN RELOADED TAPE to finish telling her story to Ingrid)--and has figured out something's amiss.
What's making the show REALLY cook now is that we're seeing not just "fake reality" of how things are going on the set (which is hysterical and over-the-top), but the "real reality" of producers and writers frantically scrambling to figure out if the show can be saved. The Meta is almost so substantial it makes your head explode. Truly great are the captions used during Ingrid's confessionals, which progress from "Thinks It's All Real," to "Thinks Parts of It Are Real," to "We're Screwed." The producers have managed to make hay out of a very troubling situation, and that's impressive. And by doing this, Ingrid quickly rises to near the top of my list of likable reality contestants--actually, she did that by losing it early on at the snark-licious moment when the bachelor entered on a litter carried by men in Speedos.
Unfortunately, my TiVo cut off the last few minutes of the episode (the new timeslot follows live wrestling, which means there's frequently overruns), so I missed the eviction ceremony, which apparently ends in a cliffhanger about Ingrid's fate and whether she's going to be told what's going on. However they resolve it, going to be great TV, and you bet I'll be watching. The episode repeats several times during the week, and catch it.
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