I have recently acquired an American friend and so have been introduced to some seriously insane reality television. Some British stuff is pretty great, but if you want to experience the genuine horror of human existence go for the US of A. I’ve discovered that there is little more cathartic and soothing than getting stoned and watching people do insane things. Whether that be running the world’s worst dive bar, or marrying a dude that lives on a mountain it never fails to tickle my brain in just the right way. Choosing just a few of my absolute favourite shows has been tricky but I believe these truly are the creme de la creme de la crap tv.
Bar Rescue
I’m going to start with this show because I’ve been watching it solidly for the last few days, I’m actually watching it now on my second monitor. This show is basically Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares but for American dive bars. This means that the owners are way more feral, much more intense, and the stuff that goes on in the bars is significantly more shocking. The show is hosted by Mr John Tanner, an entrepreneur with a background in the bar industry. He is called in to failing bars that are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and he fixes them right up.
Usually he will show up to a bar that is in complete disrepair, has some sort of horrifying mould growing in the ice machine, and serves food that could kill a raccoon instantly. The owner is mostly drunk, giving their friends free drinks, the wait staff are also hammered and just getting up to all sorts of nonsense. It’s great fun. Tanner then goes in, does some first class yelling to rival Ramsay himself, and then brings in a variety of experts to help fix the bar and the kitchen.
We then do a dramatic stress test to see what the bar can cope with, followed by a magic make over, then a successful opening night that leads to the bar being fully turned around. Well, most of the time. Great fun to watch with a group of people or on your own, highly recommend.
90 Day Fiance
This show is insane, I had never seen it before meeting my aforementioned American pal but I love it. The premise of this show is that American’s meet people from other countries online. They decide they want to get married, but in order to do that they have to spend 90 days together in order to get a marriage visa. This probably doesn’t sound that insane but I promise you the people on this show are intense. We have a combination of gross rich guys and ladies looking for gross rich guys and a green card, we have genuine love, we have catfish, and of course we have a bunch of completely mental Americans. This is a great show if you just want to yell at something and constantly say “what the actual f@*k”. The other great thing about this show is that it has about a million different spin offs featuring the people from the original show. Well those whose marriages just didn’t work out for some reason.
Don’t Tell The Bride
Of course, I had to have a UK one in here and what better than the super popular Don’t Tell The Bride. This is a show that I sometimes struggle with because every episode shows a selfish man child blowing a wedding budget on some gimmicky wedding and a lavish bachelor party. The bachelorette usually consists of the bride being sent to a local pub with 50 quid behind the bar for her and her 10 friends. Sorry, so the point of this show is that a couple who is getting married gets given a decent budget by the producers. The catch being that the groom has to arrange the entire event, the bride cannot be involved at all. The groom is always described as being a “big kid” while the bride is always the organised one who does his laundry and basically acts like a mummy that he sleeps with. So of course the second the overgrown boy gets given the money he says things like “the wedding’s going to be in Ibiza” and “nah I don’t think she’ll care about having her hair and makeup done”. They don’t think anything through, don’t care about what the bride wants, and drink most of the budget which results in some top quality drama.
Too Hot To Handle
A great international show with a few seasons under its belt, THTH is a grand old time. So if you know Love Island, it’s like that but with torture. Basically a bunch of super hot young people are taken to an island, thinking that they are on a sexy fun sex show, and given a bunch of booze and revealing outfits. Then, mid first night party, a robot emerges from a box or parachutes in or whatever and tells them they can’t do anything sexy for the whole time. No sex, kissing, fondling, dry humping and, my personal favourite, no masturbating. Again I have kind of an issue with the show in that the message is “you’re all bad for having sex that’s not a real relationship” which I don’t agree with. I guess I’m not really in it for the moral aspect though. Oh and the best bit, every time they break a rule they lose prize money…for everyone. So if you fancy watching a bunch of sweaty and frustrated super hot 20 somethings tease each other for a month this is the show for you.
Love Off Grid
Ok last one I’m going to squeeze in, Love Off Grid. Another American show where people hook up with other people that live in the middle of nowhere. They might live on a commune, up a mountain, in the desert, who knows. But, if this city dweller wants to be with them, they have to go and live the rough country life. Most of them aren’t super into it, what a surprise. Another great one for just enjoying the suffering of strangers.
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