After disappearing to make way for the Stanley Cup, I'm a Celeb got wiped out by, appropriately, Wipeout and So You Think You Can Dance. This isn’t much of a surprise: It’s become pretty dull. It’s a combination of the ho-hum personalities, the sluggish pace, the predictable challenges and the confusing time-shifts and format. One minute, we vote who goes in the food trial, then next time, they do. And what’s the difference between a food trial and a luxury trial? And why, after 10 days, is and Janice Dickinson allowed to opt out of every trial yet still stay in the game?
The whole thing makes no sense. I really wanted to like this show but, along with the rest of the viewing public, I’m getting fed up. It just isn’t moving quickly enough to warrant daily attention. Plus: NBC has got some nerve forcing us to sit through two-hours of this, they must be insane. I was surprised when Celebrity Apprentice ran at two hours per episode this season, but it actually worked—there was a lot going on, it moved fast, and the players were seriously competitive and capable. (Except for poor mixed-up Dennis Rodman; jeez what a mess. I hope he’s getting help.)
But Celebrity is dragging; it’s as tedious as Thanksgiving Dinner with a table full of deaf older relatives. Tonight, we open with the Immunity Trial, a test of endurance that requires the campmates to hang from their arms over a pool of watery mud. J-Dick was—guess what—exempted. “I am not feeling well!” she whines to America, sporting some crazy-looking drawn-on kabuki eyebrows. We see a lot of grubby, dank-looking armpits as the rest of them do their thing. We learn that: While hanging from her arms, Torrie’s fake boobs rise up to meet her chin, and it looks very uncomfortable; Daniel Baldwin has “multiple steel plates and metal screws” in his vertebrae (whaaaaat?); Sanji is confident that he doesn’t need immunity to stay in the game; and Stevie B. has “wimpy hands”. LouDi and his supersize bowling-pin guns take it.
In brief, here’s what happens over the next two hours. Damien gives out the “save your celebrity” phone numbers and includes Holly Montag’s, even though she hasn’t arrived yet. The camp is startled in the night by howler monkeys. Janice is picking lice out of Patti’s hair. Oh wait, no, she’s giving her a head massage. Janice also declares that she doesn’t do dishes because she’s been famous since 1974. Heh. Holly finally arrives, looking like a taller, blonde Chelsea Clinton. Stevie B. looks at her all sparkly-eyed, like he’s watching Venus rise from the clam.
J-Dick, energized by the whiff of new, young blood, instantly takes Holly under her bony wing, which elicits a collective eye-roll from the entire camp. Myleene tells Damien he has B.O., and he responds by shoving his armpit into her face. Chemistry! Holly and J-Dick team up for a food trial against Daniel and LouDi. It’s a sort of live version of that old Operation game, which I wanted desperately as a child and never got. Uncle Lou needs his reading glasses for this one. Holly wins for the Lady Team.
Everyone sits around the campfire and shares sob stories about their lives. They all get teary and bond some more. News arrives that another trial is coming up and that the teams should pick two people who are good with their hands. “Are you pretty dexterious?” LouDi asks Long Tall. Sadly, the reading glasses aren’t helping the vocabulary.
And then, the Janice Dickinson trash-fest begins. Daniel won’t stop bullying her. He goads her as she practices her favorite activity—lying on her back, holding up a hand mirror and futzing with her face. If she’s not plucking the hell out of her eyebrows, she’s touching up her grey roots or putting on more lip gloss. It’s kinda gross. And why bother with all the preening if you're just going to ruin it all by hoik up and spit out phlegm in front of millions? That's some twisted sense of vanity right there.
LouDi gets a message from someone or other—is it Big Brother? Who’s dispensing these?—that reads, “Dear Celebrities, You must not urinate in camp.” Come again? “It will attract rats, which will attract snakes.” The note also reminds them that the cameras are on them, 24/7. The group is flummoxed by this—especially J-Dick, who yells, “Who’s been urinating in camp?” Everyone applies the ancient wisdom that it’s usually the person who farted who asks, “Who farted?” We cut to J-Dick squatting on a rock in what looks like the perfect lady-peeing position. Nice one, editors!
The Baldwin brothers decide to play a prank on J-Dick. They put a rodent-resembling lump of wood in her bag, hoping to scare her facelift off. She doesn’t fall for it and calls them bullies. Which they are. When the food that she and Holly won arrives, we see J-Dick shoveling it down, stuffing more than will fit into even her wide mouth. It’s quite a revolting display. Get her to charm school, she has the most disgusting habits I've ever seen. You’d have thought that after multiple decades of international renown, The World’s First Supermodel TM would have a better sense of etiquette than this.
The rest of the camp can’t stand J-Dick now, and complain about the way she hogs all the food and supplies. As their fearless leader, LouDi feels the need to intervene and interrupts one of her eyebrow-plucking sessions to have a word. He is impressively delicate. “You’ve made your reputation for being a strong, outspoken and, for want of another word, flamboyant woman,” he begins gingerly. Then he tells her that her “behaviors” are rubbing some of the people the wrong way. Suddenly, Janice looks very old. She claims to be 54, but her actual date of birth is debatable. I’d put her at 59 or 60. And right now, she looks every minute of it. “How would you like me to be?” she glowers. He raises the issue of the food hogging. She snaps back, “I will wait till the end of the line and I’ll take the scraps that they throw at me.” God forbid she might simmer down and see the light.
Long Tall Salley and Stevie B. take the luxury trial for the boys, Patti and Torrie step up for the girls. J-Dick, who knows they’ve been talking about her behind her back, starts goading the women, all yeah, you’re both so great, you can do anything, nyah, nyah. Oh dear, this is really getting ugly.
Ugly is the theme tonight: The ladies win the trial, which involves sawing a log in half and solving some math. Long Tall is angry. He’d appointed himself captain of the team but Stevie didn’t kowtow to his commands. He does not like insubordination, and he does not like losing.
Back to angry Janice. Clearly she's the new Speidi—the only source of drama on the show, so they're milking her for all she's worth. As a group, everyone tries to make J-Dick see that she needs to deal with her issues and move on. “I’m not gonna sit here like a schmuck and continue in this dysfunction,” hollers Stevie B., “let’s get real.” Very 12-Steppey. This, of course, does not wash with Janice. “I’ve never been treated like this by a group, after what I’ve been through with my illness,” she wails. “On top of it, I’m menopausing.” Cut to a frog with bulging red eyes. Is it menopausing too? There is nothing sadder than an older woman trying to elicit sympathy for menopausing. Where is her pride? It’s making me all squirmy.
And then… hidden camera footage of J-Dick lurking in the bushes, scarfing down a granola bar she just pinched from the goodies won by Patti and Torrie, which were stashed inside the confessional. Patti tells the camp there’s one missing. “No one here is a thief,” snaps J-Dick. Okay, now we definitely know who’s been urinating in camp. Aww maaayaannnnn!
photos courtesy of NBC
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