Guiltiest Pleasure

My Friend Are Looking at Me Funny

A Media Shmedia column

by Scott Patrick Wagner

About a year ago, I confessed to a guilty pleasure that I was completely, hopelessly obsessed with. It was a little Fox reality show called So You Think You Can Dance, and I dragged you all along with me for the imminent finale.

A lot can happen in a year. SYTYCD (we devotees go with all-initials sometimes) has gone from being "oh, the one that isn't Dancing with the Stars" to firmly ensconcing itself in its own niche in the reality foyer. It has also become something of an actual boon to the world of dance, with far more significance than any hapless P.R. that might've belched out of Dancing with the Stars (it's like comparing Roquefort to Velveeta, but don't get me started). And also, a year later, we are now approaching this season's finale — tonight, in fact, if you're picking up this paper on Thursday.

If you're about to move onto something else because you're thoroughly uninterested in dance, So You Think You Can Dance, and/or my obsession with such, I recommend you stick around for a paragraph or two. Now that SYTYCD has reached a certain acceptability, the sheepishness with which I acknowledged my addiction is no longer appropriate (unless you're some kind of purist, or book-reader, or something). But do hang around, because I will be confessing to a new obsession, a hard-core guilty pleasure that will splay me clean across the lower depths of your opinion.

But first, about this year's finale on the dance thing! It has been a season of some extra-good talent and some extra-horrible camera work. When we were actually able to see the dances, some very impressive work came out of dancers and choreographers alike. For the first time, winnowing down the top ten dancers to a final four for the finale was a painful process, with so much talent being dismissed on a weekly basis. Post-winnow, we are left with a technically fine and emotionally full Contemporary dancer named Courtney, an impossibly agile and endearing Hip Hopper named Twitch, a crazy-strong and ridiculously versatile Hip Hop/crossover dancer named Joshua, and a deceptively demure dynamo (she deserves alliteration) named Katee. All four are fine, but the true battle should be between Joshua and Katee, who have fulfilled the show's mandate by growing in depth and skill all season long. They are both dancing with genuine brilliance, and whichever one has thrown some inexplicable extra into the mix last night should take all the candy on tonight's conclusion.

If you have humored me through that recap just to get to the promised humiliation, I don't think you'll be disappointed. Before I actually reveal my latest (and hopefully ultimate — I can't imagine going lower) guilty pleasure, first a disclaimer. Or maybe it's a defense. I'm so filled with fear of reprisal that I can't tell anymore. Allow me to simply state that, upon conferring with the media rep at ABC Television, I have learned that the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times are both as entranced with this über-guilty pleasure as I. So there! (I asked if the London Times is mad about it also, but she said she only handles domestic publicity.)

A few weeks ago, I decried the declining state of civilization as embodied by two of ABC's new summer reality series. One was called I Survived a Japanese Game Show, and it hasn't sunk humanity, but neither does it offer anything seductive or redemptive. The other show — which I believe I may have been particularly snarky toward — was called Wipeout.

I look forward to the weekly installments of Wipeout with a glee normally associated with a tray of Sara Lee frozen brownies. Since I don't believe Sara Lee makes frozen brownies any longer, this is a rare — albeit primal and remorse-inducing — glee indeed. I think I was particularly vitriolic in my description of the Big Balls segment of Wipeout. I love the Big Balls segments. I freeze the DVR and replay the Big Balls segments. I am doomed. But then, so are two or three different Times franchises, so man the lifeboats now, humanity!

All I can say is, the freakin' thing just makes me laugh. The hosts have found a comfy narration groove that goes from the sardonic to the silly, and the contestants approach their padded and rubberized collisions with a sunniness and a determination that are both admirable and eye-rolling. I find myself also looking forward to the new and absurd ways the production team finds weekly to reach further heights and depths with the stunts themselves. It's an interesting demonstration of American resourcefulness and unabashed exploitation, as the work-in-progress feel of the evolving stunt course keeps switching it up based on what was most ridiculously satisfying the week before. And speaking of ridiculous satisfaction, kudos to whoever scored the peppy little music track that takes us to commercial. It is as if orchestrated for piccolo and kettle drum, then arranged as Surf music. And, like every other absurd component of this unashamed thing, I just can't get enough.

I await my penance. Wheeeee.