Watching VH1

Welcome to a new feature of WatchingVH1.com! Every Monday after new CelebReality shows air on VH1, I will give you a glimpse into my thoughts and what you may have missed. As soon as recaps of the shows are available, I will link to those as well.

I Love New York–Reunion Show

Tiffany Ballard (New York) was back and so were all the men from I Love New York. Last time we saw New York, she had just accepted Tango’s marriage proposal…but will they live happily ever after? If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that Tango already has a girlfriend. Well, fireworks flew as he came on the reunion show and broke off the engagement with New York. He said he had proposed to “Tiffany” but after watching her as “New York”, he didn’t want to have anything to do with her since she dissed his mama. As he left the stage, New York let fly a lot of bleeped out words and used some hand gestures to the delight of the crowd. Meanwhile, Chance was just lounging on the couch nearby with a smirk on his face talking about how she should have chose him. Of course he didn’t mean that because rumor has it Chance and his brother Real will be getting their own spinoff on VH1.

Charm School–No Mo’Nicknames

What a delicious mess the Charm School girls are! They get to ride around in a short bus and the sound effects people on this show are just brilliant. Everytime Hottie blinks her eyes, a bicycle bell goes off that makes me think nothing is going on up under that giant weave of hers. After they all found out they were assigned rooms (oh, boo hoo, Pumkin, you’re stuck with angry girls who don’t like you), Mo’Nique made them burn their nametags with their nicknames on them and use their real names (yes, that means you too Krazy/Heather…not some made up ridiculous singing name of yours). Luckily, when they flash on screen for confessionals, their nicknames are still there under their real names because otherwise I’d have no clue who they were. The funniest part of the nickname burning ceremony was Mo’Nique making fun of Saaphyri’s nickname only to learn that is her real name (she was shown the door for fighting in Flavor of Love before he handed out nicknames, so she never got one). The girls are then forced to hike up a hill for two miles with a bunch of camping gear (it took them 4 hours! I think I could crawl 2 miles in 4 hours and I’m definitely not in shape). Between Schatar/Hottie and Thela/Rain complaining non-stop about things and thinking a spa was at the top of the hill, I was ready to turn off the show. However, they all made it through the night and then the next morning competed in a Marine obstacle course. Captains Saaphyri and Leilene/Smiley picked teams and Leilene didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings so she chose a crappy team for a physical challenge. Saaphyri’s team easily won the competition and all were immune from being expelled that night. When they got back to the mansion, the girls got their “good Catholic girl” uniforms and slutted it up as best as they could. In the end, crazy Thela/Rain was sent home after a one-on-one with Mo’Nique where she admitted to doing pot and how she couldn’t control her rage. Looks like it will be an interesting season…and New York will make a guest appearance sometime as well.

The Springer Hustle

This is probably the show I’m most disappointed in. Not enough Springer show action and too much behind the scenes stressed out boring stuff, in my opinion. It was interesting to see how they put the shows together and make the crazy guests even crazier, but I don’t know how they are going to keep this up for the rest of the season. The pace is so frenetic that I had to do breathing exercises to calm myself down just watching them. It’s high stakes, just like The Agency, but in fast forward and they deal with what they call “trailer trash” instead of high end women’s fashion models. There was so much yelling and coaxing of these people who want to be on the show it made my head spin. Salina, the producer we followed this week as she put a show together, was definitely driven, but she only left herself 48 hours to book an entire show, fly the guests in, prep them, and pull it all together for taping. I think my head would explode if that is the “daily grind” at my work. Next week, we follow a different producer named Toby as he puts his show together. It’s probably going to be the same thing with a different producer every week. Unless a producer comes along that actually makes me care about them, this is going to be one long season for me.

What did you think about the new shows? Comment below and give me the low down! If you haven’t seen the episodes yet, check out my handy TV Schedule to see when they are on next or see clips at the VSPOT.

VH1 Recaps, CelebReality Recaps, CelebReality, I Love New York, Reunion Show, Charm School, The Springer Hustle, Recap, Commentary, Mo’Nique