This time of year, I feel compelled to remind readers (as I remind myself over and over) that I don't hate all reality shows.
But boy, the networks are making it harder to keep an open mind. The proper response to most new unscripted shows is revulsion - or better yet, nausea.
All the networks are coming up with reality series after reality series this summer in hopes that something will stick.
I can understand their pursuing this tactic because the reality genre was launched by summer programming that turned into monster hits: "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" for ABC and "Survivor" for CBS.
But those are veteran shows, and old news. What's new, for the most part, has led to my increasing irritation. Now is the summer of my discontent - and we're only a week into June.
The best of the summer reality crop, so far? WB's surprisingly kind "Beauty & the Geek" and Thursday's new CBS entry, "The Cut," which has Tommy Hilfiger playing Donald Trump and weeding through 16 wanna-be clothes designers.
"The Cut" is the most successful attempt yet to adapt the "Apprentice" formula - but even there, when my preview tape stopped short of revealing the first challenge's winning team, I didn't feel as if I was robbed.
More like spared.
As for summer's other reality shows, a combined list feels like a multiplex showing from the seventh circle of hell.
"The Real Gilligan's Island," which I considered the worst series of 2004, is back to inflict us again for a second season, beginning tomorrow night on TBS.
The only way this show could justify its existence would be if the island, this time, were the Bikini Atoll, and the collected contestants were eliminated in a very real, atom-bomb sense.
Tonight's new entry, "Fire Me...Please" (CBS, at 9), is built around the irritation of unsuspecting employers, and has the same irritating effect on viewers.
Programs that premiered last week without benefit of preview, ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" and NBC's "Hit Me Baby One More Time," provided too little context and even less entertainment value.
Judges on the former tried too hard to be glib and quote-worthy (but failed), while watching the ravages of time do their work on formerly idolized rockers is more sadistic than heartwarming.
"Britney & Kevin: Chaotic"? Repugnant. If there were a White Trash lobby, someone would sue.
And on it goes. This doesn't include cable, or the other unscripted shows unveiled by the broadcast networks later this summer, including NBC's "I Want To Be a Hilton" and Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance."
The cumulative effect of all this, to a TV critic, is despairing.
We have to watch this stuff, and who knows the long-term effects of repeated exposure to fake Gingers and Skippers, or to reunited Flocks of Seagulls?
I'd say fire me...please, but I'm not that disheartened yet. Check with me again in August, though - after I've sat through NBC's "Tommy Lee Goes to College."
