Carl’s gonna live forevahhhh…That’s right, my friends. Carl is, as of today, a Big TV Star. He hasn’t made his debut yet…in fact he’s filming right now…but it’s only a matter of time before there’s an action figure of him (complete with bright yellow vest) and fan sites devoted to him and he’ll be on all the talk shows and on magazine covers and then groupie girls will start trying to get with him, because of the fame, you see, and also possibly because of the yellow vest…because there is nothing that a groupie girls likes better than a yellow vest…and I will have to bat these girls away from him like so many predatory wasps, and then he will dump me for J. Lo and I’ll be stuck with only my online journal and the cats for company. Only a matter of time, I’m telling you.
He really is going to be on TV though. A reality show, even. Can you believe it? Somehow, through some Seattle Geeks mailing list or something, he found about this new show that the Discovery Channel is piloting. It’s supposedly going to go up against Junkyard Wars and is along the same lines, from what we know thus far. There are two teams of geeks and they are supposed to escape from something, or build something, or solve something. In a big warehouse in Tukwila, which is where Carl is right now, getting makeup on and practicing signing his autograph. I think. They haven’t told him very much about it, and I wasn’t allowed to go watch for “insurance reasons” and so I am free to make up whatever I want to at this point.
The big joke here is, of course, that since neither of us have TV and don’t watch it, we’re a little stunted in terms of what to expect. We haven’t seen Survivor or The Bachelorette or even the show that this is supposed to compete against. The only reason I have any idea of what a reality show is has to do with a slavish devotion to TWOP. It’s a case where I take their tag line “We Watch Television So You Don’t Have To, quite seriously indeed.
Anyway, I don’t know if this is going to be the type of reality show where all the contestants have to get naked and make out with each other in the hot tub in order to win, but I can see that if that’s the case, things are going to get messy.
Director Okay, now let’s kick it up a notch, and y’all get naked and get into the hot tub and make out! Yeah, baby, yeah!
Carl There is no hot tub. We’re in an unheated warehouse in Tukwila.
Director I know. This is a reality show for geeks. You have to build one first.
Craig and Frank, Carl’s other teammates Yeah, baby, yeah!
time elapses
Frank Bitch, when I say solder, I mean solder! I don’t mean stick it together with duct tape!
Craig Whatever! Let’s just get a gigantic hunk of wood and carve the tub out of it! Or how about an old airplane fuselage? And then let’s get some SensoMatic electrodes stuck on our heads so that you can just think about how hot you want the water! And it should have a lollipop dispenser right about here…
Carl Well, the differential equations indicate a fundamental incompatibility of an order of magnitude…
Director (Snore.)
(time elapses)
Craig Where’d everyone go? Why are we alone in this warehouse in Tukwila?
Frank Are we? I hadn’t noticed.
Carl Well, can we still get naked?
And so forth. I would dearly love to see what the other team is like. I would also dearly love to see how the production staff interacts with the geeks. I’m imagining they will all be slick Hollywood scensters, unused to the antics of Northwest polarfleece freaks. I can just see them whispering to each other, “Okay, don’t make any sudden moves. They hate that. Just advance slowly and calmly, and offer them some Mountain Dew. Then, when you’ve gained some trust, make them sign the non-disclosure statement and hold them down long enough to get some foundation on and a little blusher to highlight the cheeks. Give them some sort of gadget to keep them occupied…yes, that old Wallace and Gromit doll is perfect. Okay, softly now! Softly!” As if the geeks are these sort of cows, that have to be herded and petted, and capitulated to, and soothed. Not quite like the rest of us, are they, Slick Hollywood Scenesters! No, no they aren’t!
The other issue is the abovementioned lack of TV around these parts. We know some people who have it, but I don’t think I know anyone with cable, so how are we going to watch it? It’s going to be a little awkward when InStyle calls and wants to interview Carl and he has to be all “Uh, yeah, I didn’t watch it. BECAUSE I DON’T HAVE TV. Who won? Oh, we did? That would explain all these panties I keep getting in the mail.” So, maybe they’ll send us a tape? Maybe I’ll cultivate some more pop-culture savvy friends who will let me come to their house to watch it? I have no idea.
So I don’t know how this is going to go, and I don’t know what their challenge is going to be, and I don’t know who’s going to win, and I don’t know anyone who gets the Discovery Channel, but I know that against the sheer combined brainpower of those three, the other team…and very probably the director and producer and all the other people involved…don’t stand a chance.