Reality TV Vs. Real TV

For the first time in a long time, I can honestly say that I like Mondays. Look forward to 'em, even.

I'm not a huge TV watcher. The boob tube in our house is usually set to Blues Clues or Spongebob Squarepants. The closest I come to intellectual television is Sesame Street. And I've been fine with that. There was never really anything on that I could say I had to watch. Reality TV, in my humble opinion, bites. There's nothing real about it. And all those cop shows - well - they're a little too real, if you know what I mean.

Enter the Discovery Channel. True reality TV at it's finest. People just like me, having the same problems I'm having, facing the same challenges I do. Except they're failing at far more spectacular levels than I could ever dream of.

My latest favourite is a happy little show called Canada's Worst Handyman. It airs on Monday night at 10:00PM. At first, I had my doubts about this one. I was fully expecting it to be nothing more than video clips of home renovation mishaps, like America's Funniest Home Videos in a really tight niche.

Oh, no, my friends. This is knee-slapping, side-splitting ineptitude. There are five nominees who are forced to perform standard home reno tasks with the help of their nominators. At the beginning of each episode, they are shown by a professional how to complete the required tasks. Of course, none of them ever thinks to take notes. This shouldn't surprise us, though, since note-taking would demonstrate some modicum of common sense, which seems to go on immediate hiatus as soon as anyone in the group is handed a power tool.

The good people at Discovery Channel had me hooked at episode one. This is where we're introduced to each of the nominees and their unique brands of incompetence. Task number one was to patch a six inch by six inch hole in the ceiling. Remember, they were all shown how to complete this task beforehand. It involved a block of wood, a few screws, a piece of drywall, some drywall tape and putty. Note that I did not say "duct tape" anywhere in that list of supplies. Put the block of wood inside your hole, screw through the existing drywall (on either side of your hole) to hold it in place. Then screw your piece of drywall into your block of wood. Tape and putty the seam around your drywall patch, and voilà ! You're done.

None, and I do mean none, of the nominees used the block of wood. One of them apparently has a duct tape fetish. He uses it for everything from plumbing to dressing wounds. When his piece of drywall refused to defy gravity and stay in place without screws or bracing, he went in search of duct tape to hold his drywall patch in place. He found some, in another room, being used to cover a hole that the show's lighting men had made (kind of ironic, no?). His drywall patch is now being held in place by a couple of pieces of used duct tape. He then proceededd to plaster over the duct tape. No, it didn't hold (just in case some of you out there are thinking of trying it).

Another nominee used his block of wood as a brace, but it was on top of a ladder and a small stack of boxes, actually propping up his sagging drywall-and-putty mess. Yet another nominee couldn't figure out why his screws weren't going in, so he abandoned his piece of wood as well. Turns out the drill he was using was in reverse. He was lucky, though, in that he was able to wedge his piece of drywall into place so he could actually putty it without it falling on his wife/nominator's head.

This is funny, funny stuff, people! Better yet, it's funny stuff we can all relate to. Way better than watching a bunch of beautiful people eating cockroaches on a tropical island in hopes of a million bucks and an endorsement deal or two. This is real TV.