Lippert Critiques Reality TV

Just to save face, I would normally start an article about reality TV with some major qualifiers, like I never watch that crap but happened to see something on my way to PBS, or that I only follow series that foster real talent, like Project Runway (The latter is, by the way, in limbo, a victim of greed.) But I'm not here to save face. I'm here to save Steve. That's Steve Wozniak, the Apple co-founder who has become one of the improbable characters on Dancing With the Stars. A European import, unlike the dating shows that devolve into fighting and nudity, Dancing has always been old-fashioned, gaudy and cornball. But this season, it's also heading into the territory of big-time tragedy.Yup, old Euripides had nothing on these producers. So far, the paramedics have been working overtime on the Dancing set, and the show is only in its second week. Even Steve-O, the Jackass of all Jackasses, who made his name by setting himself on fire and/or getting run over, was taken out by ambulance, a victim of the salsa. Nancy O'Dell and Jewel had to drop out before the show even started, having seriously injured themselves during practice. They were replaced by two hoofers who come from a specially cloned superrace of reality show humanoids: Holly, a Barbie doll come to life who was one of Hef's coterie on The Girls Next Door; and Melissa, who was affianced to but rudely dumped by The Bachelor, Jason, just a few days before Dancing's season premiere. (Jason seemed to be totally manipulated by Bachelor producers to do this.) Now, Melissa reveals that she used to be a dancer for the Dallas Cowboys -- and hey, this reality stardom sure beats life without the cameras with Jason Mesnick in Seattle. (USA Today reported that Jason makes $60,000 a year and gets child support from his ex-wife.) A girl can always dream. (This is another sub-theme of the reality genre: once you've made your name on one show, you can never go back to pre-camera civilian life. You become a reality monster.) Every season, the producers tend to include a number of unexpected personalities (a nice way of saying freaks). For example, a couple of seasons back, they hired the ex-Mrs. Paul McCartney, Heather Mills, mostly because she's got one leg. It was supposed to be an inspiration for the limbless everywhere, but many viewers tuned in for the potential horror of watching an artificial limb pop off. This year's Heather, I'm sad to say, is that master of all geeks, The Woz. The co-founder of Apple, Wozniak is a true genius and personal computer pioneer who left the company early on (and let the other Steve do the marketing) so that he could live quietly and do good works. So what could have possessed him to do this?I guess it started with "dating" Kathy Griffin on her reality show, My Life on the D-List (the popularity of which has vaulted her from the D-list to the B-list, at least.) On D-List, Woz escorted Griffin to a couple of functions while she made fun of his nerdiness. (She called him "The Billionaire with the backpack.") Next thing she knew, he got married. (To someone else.) All I can say is, what is this current wife (the third, I believe) thinking? How divorced from reality is she?Despite the fact that he tries hard, meticulously counting out steps in that hard-drive he has for a head, the reality is that he's 58, overweight, very sweaty and egg-shaped. He also doesn't look particularly good in satin or tulle. On the first night, judge Bruno Toniolo said his performance was like "watching a Teletubby going mad," and that was apt.Certainly, he'll get the geek vote. (Word has it he requested a special "Vote for Steve" iPhone app.) And he's dancing for geeks everywhere.But at what price? In an interview, he admitted that back in the day he was seriously injured in a plane crash and for a good while after that had trouble "forming memories." (How's that for a geeky way of putting it?)After the first show, it came out that he injured his foot -- probably just from doing all that rehearsing -- putting his full weight on his little stems.He was put in a temporary walking cast, which he takes off for rehearsals. On the second show, he claimed that he had only taken "one aspirin" in five days, but that was hard to believe.We got to see a little video from his doctor visit, where the MD told him he had an "incipient fracture" and that if he continued, there was a good chance of "crushing your foot."Last night, he mixed the '50s with geekdom, and really did it up, in faux Buddy Holly glasses, complete with tape, Converse sneakers and some sort of tuxedo with tails and high-waist pants that made him look like a cross between Groucho Marx and an obese Urkel.Much more importantly, if the Woz continues to dance wounded, he's setting himself up for a fall of Shakespearean proportions, figuratively and literally.I'm not having fun thinking about the incipient wreck. Unlike the perverse fun of watching other reality shows, there's no schadenfreude on my part here -- only genuine worry that a bizarre stand for geekdom will end with physical paralysis.This has turned into true Depression viewing, like the desperate dance marathons depicted in They Shoot Horses, Don't They?Steve, please, you've made your mark. Exit like Steve-O, by ambulance if you have to, but let ABC and Disney find another dancing fool to slaughter.

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Lippert Critiques Reality TV

Barbara Lippert

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Barbara Lippert