Guilty Pleasures

With the exception of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, I just don’t watch reality TV.

Until last night.

Saw a promo that Friends was new last night, so Melissa and I settled in on the sofa to watch. (In my defense, I know that it isn’t as good or as funny as it was the first three or four seasons. But I’ve got nine years invested in the show, and I’ll be damned if I’ll stop watching now. Besides, after that uninteresting second season of Enterprise, the only shows I still watch are Friends, Will & Grace, QE, and E/R. (And yes I know E/R has gotten old, too — but the same argument holds for it as holds for Friends.))

Anyway.

We were left with the same choice we have every Thursday night — what to do in the half hour between Friends and Will & Grace, and the other half hour between Will & Grace and E/R. Then we noticed there was no Will & Grace. Instead, 90 minutes of Donald Trump and The Apprentice.

Uh-oh. I’d blogged enough for one day, and 90 minutes just isn’t enough time for a good movie — especially since we’d have had to move our lazy butts downstairs to the big HDTV to watch one. 90 minutes to kill. Nothing to kill it with.

Might as well watch the Donald make an ass out of himself.

And — surprise! — the show was pretty damn good. The Trump wanna-bes were mostly an uninteresting lot. We couldn’t really cheer for any of them — although we did have a great time watching Sam squirm. So what made the show? The last thing I would’ve expected: The Donald.

Oh, the tour of his god-awful everything-that-glitters-really-is-18k-gold home was painful. When he read his cue cards, I wanted to smack him with a brick. But the last 25 minutes, with Trump and his two executives discussing the day’s accomplishments with the wanna-bes, was terrific entertainment. Not only that, it was a short & sharp education on how personnel decisions are made.

Fire the male team boss, because his team got shellacked by the girls? Or should you give him another chance, because he stepped up to lead his team? Get rid of the sycophantic go-getter who everyone hates? Or do you want to see what he can do on a tighter leash?

I can’t say I’ll become a regular viewer. The show is moving to Wednesday nights, and that’s usually a movie night around the VodkaHome. But I might just tape it, if only to watch the Donald in his boardroom at the end of each show.