I've noticed I've been watching way more TV than usual. Is it summertime boredom? Possibly. Is it the quality of shows? Heck no. Have you seen the shows on TV? Most are just horrible or at least sounds horrible. It maybe explains why I mostly watch reruns or the news.

Almost all the bad ones fall in the category of reality television, cheap "real-life" programming networks can just plug into their schedule. Have you seen the crap put out there?

Who Wants to Marry My Dad? - The title speaks for itself. At least it isn't a millionaire. It's an awful match-me-up show from the creators of Meet My Folks, another awful match-me-up show. You know what that means. Lie detector. It was a funny feature on the movie Meet the Parents, but here is unnecessary and really unwatchable since it's obvious the guy or gal will always be lying.

Cupid - Another awful match-me-up show consisting of a gal and her two friends picking or rejecting lines of guys. It's an interesting concept if only they didn't allow the show to degenerate into how shady the characters can get on the show. Would a guy trying to impress a lady really show up psycho, homeless, crazy, dirty, or all of the above? No, but Cupid seems to show all of them while showing probably one or two guys that pass the three ladies' tests. It's from Simon Cowell, the critical judge from American Idol, that overblown talent competition that doesn't seem to identify talent. As nice as they are, they're really not that good. Sure, I couldn't do any better, more likely much worse, but these are supposed to be America's idols, and instead they're marginal singers.

The Dating Experiment - Another awful match-me-up show where contestants spend their day at the whim of a mysterious diary. Never watched it and looking at the ratings, nobody else has either. So it has to be awful.

For Love or Money - Another awful match-me-up show which reverses the concept of Joe Millionaire, itself another awful match-me-up show. A guy dwindles the pool of women to 1 and that woman gets to choose between him and a million dollars. In the first installment, the lady has chosen the money. Now, in the inevitable sequel, she gets to choose from a pool of men or $2 million dollars. I wonder what she's gonna choose.

I can't think of any more match-me-up shows, but they're not all bad. Blind Date was successful. So was Love Connection and The Dating Game. But unlike those, this new crop of shows, plus The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, that mask one on FOX, etc., involve marriage and once you get into the life-changing business, the show ultimately degenerates into a series of hoops everyone must go through that's tedious, lame, unnecessary, and dull. The three "good" ones made us laugh and if they didn't like each other, hey that's it. They didn't have to spend 6 months in front of millions of people to find that out.

I used to like Last Comic Standing. I'll probably watch it again, but I won't enjoy it. Before the last episode, I felt sorry for the only Viet guy there. They all picked on him. He even had my last name. Then I saw his comedy. Man, is it awful. He has the stereotypical high-pitched Asian voice doing material about his mom. Now I understand what the other houseguests saw in him. Then he kicks off Dave, easily the funniest guy there. His clumsy terrorist TV pilot idea was hilarious. Though I still wonder what's the point of having them live in the same house anyway. No one wants to see comedians living in the same house, right? Just have them do standup.

American Juniors is simple child exploitation just like the same show they had on NBC. That NBC show was horrendous especially when the concept changed to seniors even though Mario Lopez didn't seem to make the transition.

Again, not all reality TV is bad. Big Brother isn't bad, it just doesn't go far enough. We wanna see 12 killers in a house together or 12 sex-crazed people. Having their exes come in was interesting. It even drove a guy literally crazy. But after a week, nobody seems to care anymore. Survivor is always interesting, always seems to re-invent itself for the best. The Mole used to be smart and interesting before they dumbed it down for celebrities. The best show now is The Amazing Race, where you follow around teams as they travel around the world. This is the most interesting concept out there, even if this new cast is a bit boring. But like most good things on TV, not enough people watch it to allow it to stick around. Look what happened to Sports Night.