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<\/a>The Discovery Channel just so happens to run back-to-back-to-back-to-back episodes of ‘American Chopper’ while I’m home alone with my new son, Dexter. Whenever he’s in one of his crying fits, I usually turn it to the ‘Chopper’ marathons and hope the not-so-soothing voice of Paul Tuetul, Sr. will overpower the incessant screaming from my youngster. Usually, it ends up as a cacophony of yelling, and truthfully I can’t tell who’s being a bigger baby sometimes.<\/p>\nI’m not all that interested in motorcycles. I’ve never actually driven one. So, really I have no idea why I enjoy watching this show so much. Maybe it’s the fact that the Tuetul family is so dysfunctional that they make a crying baby seem like an easy-peasy problem. Seriously, this family is nutso. They’ve got some problems, and that makes great TV. With the split-up of Senior and Junior, this season has taken on an even more contentious feeling. These guys constantly bitch about one another, and there’s something sad about a father and son who aren’t on speaking terms anymore.<\/p>\n
There’s no reason why I should enjoy watching this show, but four or five hours can pass by during an ‘American Chopper’ afternoon marathon without me even realizing it. It’s sad, I know.<\/p>\n
‘The Biggest Loser’<\/h5>\n
I’m curiously attached to this show for no real discernible reason. Everything about it I find unintentionally funny. It’s supposed to be symbolic that the contestants’ favorite junk foods are displayed in giant refrigerators. I just laugh. To this day, I have no idea why the contestants must remove their shirts for the weigh-ins. Ron from ‘The Biggest Loser: Couples 2’ looked like a real-life version of Zoidberg. Now that was scary.<\/p>\n What makes the entire story so pathetic is that they spent around $250,000 to get the whole operation up and running, and ended up only mining a fraction of that amount in actual gold the first season. Then, to make matters worse, the beginning of the second season started with the entire team being kicked off of their leased land by one of their bitter rivals, who bought the land right out from under them. Nothing goes right for these guys who went up to Alaska to mine for gold after the economic downturn hit them all hard. It’s all pretty sad, but makes for blatant emotionally-charged television.<\/p>\n<\/a>The show has lost a little bit of the pizzazz it once had. Jillian Michaels is gone, presumably spending her time lending her voice to motivational treadmills and doing Go Daddy commercials. Tennis star Anna Kournikova has been added to the mix of trainers, which is hilarious in its own right. She’s far too nice, but tries to act mean, which makes the entire experience of her trying to motivate fat people even more comical. Jillian had being a bitch down to a science. Kournikova tries to emulate her, but it doesn’t work when it comes from such a genuinely nice person.<\/p>\n‘Gold Rush’<\/h5>\n
<\/a>The Discovery Channel has shed light on just about every seemingly interesting profession. The network made waves with ‘Deadliest Catch’, and now has a new series about gold miners in Alaska. The biggest draw to this show is watching a group of the most inept gold miners the world has ever seen. It’s hard not to feel bad for this group. The poor guys, led by father-son duo Jack and Todd Hoffman, obviously have no idea what they’re doing. I imagine that I would have roughly the same amount of success if I started up a gold mining team. The only one of the group that has done any actual mining is Jack; the others are newbies.<\/p>\n‘L.A. Ink’<\/h5>\n