I tend to lose interest in “reality tv” shows after a couple of seasons. The third seasons of Rock of Love was horrendous, sixth season of Project Runway was painfully boring and Last Comic Standing lost all its charm when they stopped making the comedians live together, but I loved everything that preceded those events on all three.
With VH1 playing in the background while working last week a commercial came on for the seventh season of Celebrity Fit Club. Seventh. Oh lord, this can’t be good. Casting former dancer and guy-who-finally-turned-Britney-Spears-into-straight-up-trailer-trash Kevin Federline against longtime sitcom actress and KFed’s baby momma Shar Jackson is clearly the hype magnet VH1 is banking on this season, completely ignoring the already-tired-on-the-reality-scene washed up music stars Bobby Brown and Sebastian Bach, but I was sold when I realized the sassy dude with glasses in the promo was none other than Project Runway winner Jay McCarroll. Apparently Jay isn’t famous enough to actually get namedropped in the promo, but he’s known to be as entertaining as two well-dressed koalas fighting over a pack of eucalyptus cigarettes with only interpretive dance as their weapons. Dammit, VH1, you’ve done it again (although that koala show would be pretty sweet). Alright, let’s give this a shot…
The cast is rounded out by High School Musical fat girl KayCee Stroh, Tanisha Thomas from Bad Girls Club (a show I liken to Dutch Oven & Camp Cooking in that I only know it exists from watching E!’s The Soup) and former Baywatch babe Nicole Eggert, who basically looks like a middle-aged MILF, but since she used to be a supermodel or something I guess she needs to lose weight? Or something?
In the first episode, Jay absolutely whups K-Fed’s behind in an obstacle course, Tanisha throws up after running from her bunk to… the tree outside her bunk, Bobby Brown has fried chicken and beer for dinner (which I suppose is his prerogative… I don’t feel good about that joke at all) and Shar cries about abandonment issues and being an unwilling tabloid star (a theme I am certain will be constant all season). Jay is really stealing the show, though, by being absolutely charming and not even remotely a diva, though he does lament the inability to accessorize workout sweats (a woe he corrects by inexplicably wearing gold chains to his weigh-in!). Oh yeah, and he talks about how his dad was diagnosed with diabetes at his age and how he watched as it slowly killed him bit-by-bit. That’s damn endearing television right there.
Outside of the typical problem with these first episodes being way too long and starting off really slow, it was actually a lot of fun watching rocker Sebastian Bach get knocked down a few pegs for not being able to do a proper sit-up and raging bitch Tanisha suddenly scared straight by alpha dog drill instructor Harvey Walden. More importantly, Jay McCarroll is on television again and he’s warmed my heart all over again, so I suppose I’m stuck watching yet another trashy reality competition, rooting the fashionable one on. And with the Olympics being generally boring so far, I’ve got no problem watching the new episode of Fit Club tonight.
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