My annual Top 10 list of Crap I Won’t Be Watching this Fall

1. America’s Next Top Model … Never have, never will.
2. The Apprentice … Ditto.
3. Survivor: Nicaragua/The Biggest Loser … Double Ditto.
4. 90210/The Gossip Girl … I honestly can’t tell the difference.
5. One Tree Hill … This is still on? Really?
6. Outlaw … NBC premiered this Friday drama on a Wednesday … I still didn’t watch. And I like Jimmy Smits.
7. Secret Millionaire … ABC can’t even figure out a premiere date for this one.
8. School Pride … Can’t seem to work up enough interest to figure out what the hell this one is.
9. Anything at All on Saturday Except My DVR … The Nets have given up on Saturday so I’ve decided to join them.
10. Dancing with the Stars … You’re not getting me this year, you bastards!!! Bristol and the Hoff? I’d rather die than let you get me …

Here is your TeleVision from Hell Top Ten New Shows Not to Watch, 2009 Edition.

1. The Jay Leno Show, NBC
2. The Beautiful Life, CW – Canceled after just two episodes
3. Melrose Place, CW
4. Any and Every New Reality Show on Any Network
5. Eastwick, ABC
6. Hank, ABC
7. Accidentally On Purpose, CBS
8. Brothers, Fox
9. Romantically Challenged, ABC – Not on the schedule, but sounds HORRIBLE
10. 100 Questions, NBC – Not on the schedule

I watch what I can then I review what I want.  But there are a handful of shows that I’ve never seen, others I never want to see, and some I would be uncomfortable admitting I’ve ever seen at all.  This is my list of television programming that I’m perfectly happy to skip this season.  In fact, I insist.

1. Moment of Truth
2. Hole in the Wall
3. Wife Swap
4. One Tree Hill
5. Americas Got Talent
6. Big Brother
7. Brothers & Sisters
8. The Ex List
9. America’s Next Top Model
10. Stylista

I’m not sure why this list would require any kind of explanation.  But here you go, just in case you’re curious or severely brain damaged.

Is there any sicker excuse for a “game show” than The Moment of Truth?  The only thing more disturbing to me than the fact that Fox actually broadcasts this steaming pile of bile is the fact anyone would ever voluntarily participate in it.  This is what I like to call “true torture television”.  I don’t have to actually watch it (and I never have) to know it deserves nothing but derision and outright hatred.  I’m happy to give it both.

Where The Moment of Truth is hateful and mean-spirited, Hole in the Wall is simply stupid.  Too stupid to believe actually.  The object of the game is to contort yourself and your co-contestants in such a way as to pass through differently shaped holes … in a wall.  If you fail, the wall slams into you and dumps you in the water below.  That’s it.  You have to love the commercial for this show where an overweight woman is confronted by a hole that would have any finalist on So You Think You Can Dance? saying “what the hell?”  This is my same reaction every time I realize this crap is actually on TV.

The producers of Wife Swap would have you believe it is some kind of grand social experiment where the participants learn valuable lessons about themselves and how the other half lives.  Sure.  The fact that it appeals to the worst of our voyeuristic natures is just a bonus side-effect.  At least one half of the swap is almost always borderline dysfunctional … at best.  Something that likely describes the intended audience for the show as well.

I’ve already suffered through 90210 and Gossip Girl this season.  I’m not going to allow the CW to inflict One Tree Hill upon my already bruised psyche.  If I ever figure out which high school the programming executives at the CW attend, I’m sending my teenage nephew over there to kick somebody’s ass.

As near as I can figure, America’s Got Talent is some kind of inbred offspring of American Idol and The Gong Show.  There is a tendency for these shows to promote themselves with highlights of the most horrible and/or embarrassing acts foolish enough to get on stage.  I’m not amused by that kind of thing.  In fact, it makes me feel guilty for owning a television.

Somehow, Big Brother is into its 10th season.  The same show or a variation thereof is equally popular all over the world.  Back-stabbing, back-biting, and an occasional bare backside hardly make for quality television.  Another social experiment gone horrible wrong.

I’m really not even sure what Brothers & Sisters is about … except, I assume, brothers and sisters.  Sounds soapy and sudsy.  I honestly have no idea how this series continues to get renewed, but I remain quite confident that isn’t going to last much longer.

Here’s the premise for The Ex List: Psychic tells lonely sucker that she has already dated her one true love (or at least some guy she is supposed to marry) and that if she doesn’t hook up with him within the year, she never will.  That’s the plot … sounds like an episode of The Fringe to me.  Or How I Met Your Mother meets Medium.  Mostly it sounds like certain cancellation.

At least (or so I’ve heard) America’s Next Top Model features good looking women.  As far as I can tell, that is the only appeal of the show.  Sorry, but hot, malnourished women is not always going to be a strong enough reason for me to watch a TV show.  Not this time anyway.  And not Pussycat Dolls Presents Girlicious either.

The only reason Project Runway didn’t make the list is because Stylista was in the house.  Do we really need another reality show about fashion and modeling and magazines about fashion modeling?  This is the fashion-centric version of The Apprentice where contestants battle it out for a job at Elle magazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz …