I H8 to tell you but I watched H8R last night. It was about as good as you might expect.

This day has just about killed me but I have so much work to do I’m pretty sure my office would reanimate my and have my zombie corpse chained to my desk so I could do MORE work, is how bad it’s been. But shh, I’m sneaking in for a minute. 

So far, fall television has been a huge son, I am disappoint.

I’ve watched four new shows – one of which I KNEW would be awful but the shows I was PLANNING to watch in that time slot weren’t on because somehow I got my wires crossed, I don’t know, so I had time and it was on – and none of them were all that impressive. Remember how the other day I said that right before the fall season started, it was like Christmas Eve? Well, it’s early Christmas morning, and so far all I’ve unwrapped are some really boring educational DVDs and a hat that doesn’t fit correctly. Oh, and a bag of crazy. 

Ringer wasn’t the worst thing ever. It was fine. The special effects were horrendous, though. Who thought they were ok? Someone ok’d these? Really? Because I’m pretty sure I could do better with the video camera in my cell phone. I would be embarrassed if I was the person who was presenting this to the public. Also, it’s very, very hard for me to imagine Sarah Michelle Gellar in peril, because it’s Buffy, you know? I’m just wondering why she isn’t kicking the badguy’s asses and snarking at them. It’s disconcerting. Oh, also, Jason Dohring WASN’T EVEN IN THE FIRST EPISODE. Um, this is very worrisome, why would you do that to me, Ringer? It’s early yet, though, so I’ll give it another go. 

The NBC comedies Up All Night and Free Agents were…um…well, to be kind, they weren’t the worst things I’ve ever seen ever in the history of ever! That’s nice, right? Here’s my problem with them. First, Up All Night. Not that funny, first off. Will Arnett should only play his typical stupid/smart characters, because I don’t know if he can pull off anything else. Maya Rudolph was funny, but it’s just her Saturday Night Live Oprah character, so it seems like a rip-off. And the show’s kind of stupid. Free Agents – well, listen, I have always had a crush on Hank Azaria, and there are a lot of good actors crammed into this series, but it’s just not very good. It’s actually also pretty stupid. I guess you could turn the sound off and just stare at Hank Azaria, but that seems like a waste of half an hour. So will I watch them again? Probably not. I don’t see them getting much better. 

Now for the bag of crazy. When I tell you the title, you’re going to say, well! OF COURSE IT WAS INSANE WHAT DID YOU EXPECT. I was curious, give me a break. H8R? I almost want to say that title in a small voice and run away from you, I’m so embarrassed I watched this thing. Ok, premise is, Mario Lopez pretends to interview everyday people for a reality show and part of the interview is “blast off about one celebrity you hate more than anything and BE DESCRIPTIVE.” (They don’t say that, I added that part, but it seems to be the subtext.) So on video, we have some schmo going on and on and on about how much they hate some celebrity like, oh, I don’t know, Snookie. Then Mario Lopez shows the video TO Snookie, who he is apparently close personal friends with. And then Snookie CONFRONTS the h8r (I think I might be contractually bound to spell it like that) in his or her natural habitat. The h8r is shaken when confronted by his or her asshattery, but continues to act like an asshat because it would totally look like he or she was losing face if he or she just backed down and said “Sorry, Snookie, I don’t know you at all and was just blasting, as you do, on a celebrity that seems annoying!” Then – THEN! – Snookie took the h8r grocery shopping (…I don’t know either?) and they bonded a little, then she cooked dinner for his whole family, and at the end of the dinner, she said, “Are you still a h8r?” and he said “NO SNOOKIE I AM A LOVER” and she wooo-ed and all was well. 

The second segment was similar only stupider, because it was a girl with spotted hair (no, seriously, is this a thing? I will have to find you a graphic. She had white-blond hair with leopard-like spots running down one side of it.) 

Well, this isn’t a very good photo and also what's with this chick's emo eyeliner and such and I can’t find a better one so I guess the H8R was on the cutting edge of stupid. But it was like this, only the spots were BIGGER and only on one SIDE and VERY PRONOUNCED. And no one mentioned it? At all? In the whole episode? So that struck me as odd. 

So anyway, Spotty hated, hated, HAAAATED Jake Pavelka from The Bachelor. I don’t know anything about The Bachelor. I don’t watch it. I don’t care about dating shows. Well, except for Rock of Love. Now THAT was a dating show. Yowza. So awesomely filled with whoredom. Anyway. She went on for a while about how awful he was and then the worst part – “I heard he was probably GAY!” she said, in a shocked tone. Hmm. That WOULD be upsetting, because then he would have been MISREPRESENTING HIMSELF ON A DATING SHOW OMG. The only thing worse than that would be if he lied about the “journey” he was taking while on the show. Because isn’t that just the best? When they talk about being on a “journey?” It doesn’t at all make you want to vomit until you’re sore. 

So Mario gleefully showed Jake the footage and Jake got all sad and teary-eyed (honestly, he seemed like kind of a whine-ass, but he was pretty as all get-out) and then confronted Spotty at some spa she was at but first played a trick on her where he pretended to be hitting on her and being a douche and she was totally turned on by him but pretending not to be, so it was all of a sudden very sad. Because you could see WHY she hated Jake. Because he was every guy who’d ever turned Spotty down ever. And Spotty was actually quite pretty, if you did something about her horrendous hairstyle. Then Mario popped out of a potted plant or something and kind of strong-armed Spotty into going on a date with Jake which was kind of like one of the dates on The Bachelor, where they drove around aimlessly getting to know one another in an SUV and then went on a plane. And she was very cold but you could TELL she dug him but was just being a dick because she was getting revenge on whoever had hurt her in the past. And then – because Jake is a big old pretty weirdo – he took her to the Bachelor house, I guess to show off and be all, “Lookie what I can do, take you to a famous place because I am a very famous person!” and she was pissed (and this time, rightfully so, because it was so douchey of him.)  

OK, now THE BEST PART. He sat her down and started just spewing all over about his childhood, and how he never felt like his father loved him, and how this affected him throughout his life, and how her being a h8r really bothered him because of it, and she’s watching him all confused because HE IS TOTALLY CRYING, and then he says “I’ve never told anyone any of this before.” Really. REALLY? Then why are you telling a total stranger who just blasted you to the whole world and hates you so much? YOU ARE A WEIRD REALITY SHOW WEIRDO WITH AMAZING BONE STRUCTURE WHO IS TOTALLY SAD. She then just kind of wandered off and he realized that his daddy was never going to love him so he slammed some doors and then they separated and as she drove off she said, “I was a h8r before and I’m a H8R NOW!!!!” 

THIS SHOW IS AWFUL. 

At the end, they showed the celebrities who were going to be on the rest of the season, and I recognized three of them. And there were about ten of them. The three I recognized were Kim Kardashian, Janice Dickinson, and Eva Longoria. Then they said their names and one of them was the asshole who does the Girls Gone Wild videos. Is there anyone who LIKES this guy? I bet even his MOTHER thinks he’s a exploitative douchecanoe. And there was one guy who looked like he was made of wax and he made me laugh until I almost pissed myself. He looked like Christian Bale but made of wax. SO SO SHINY. I wanted to confront him and discuss what was going on with that face, honestly. It is apparently Scott Disick. 

This photo isn’t so shiny – it must have been the H8R lighting or he’d just had some major botox something – but I chose it because it makes me laugh. Why is he posing in front of the ocean like this? Does he think he’s auditioning for Miami Vice? Fun!  (I have never watched a single episode of that Kardashian show but my father watches it. Here is a sample of him talking about it: “I hate that show. Those people are so stupid. The people that marry them are so stupid. Something’s wrong with Bruce Jenner’s face. I don’t like their butts but all the men say they have the best butts. Why are they famous. I hate that show.” “Um, Dad, if you hate it, why do you watch it?” “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, Amy. EVERYONE watches that show.”) 

Here are my thoughts, Mario Lopez. First: it doesn’t exactly mean you are a h8r if you blast a celebrity on the internet. Sometimes it means you’re unintelligent and believe everything that’s in the tabloids; sometimes it just means you’re venting. Listen, I have a lot of celebrities I don’t like, for various reasons. Here’s a list: 

Tom Cruise: scary cult leader

Chris Klein: hates women

Miley Cyrus: seems unintelligent

Jay Leno: not funny and seems like kind of a cock

Roman Polanski: child molester

Chris Brown: beats women

Ginnifer Goodwin: seems unintelligent and chooses men incorrectly

Carrot Top: WHAT IS GOING ON WITH HIS SCARY FACE 

I don’t really HATE them, though. Why? I don’t know them! I think in order to hate someone, you really have to know them. Do I like these people? No. Do I want to hang out with them? No, no I don’t (and actually, in Carrot Top’s case, OH MY GOD PLEASE GET AWAY FROM ME NO.) 

But if Mario Lopez showed up and said I needed to spend a day with one of these people you know what I’d say? NO THANK YOU MARIO LOPEZ. That’s just a recipe for disaster, really. The people who say yes are just reality show whores who want their moment of fame. They’re just as sad as the celebrities! It’s a sad shame spiral, really. A co-dependent shame spiral. 

So this season, so far, kind of a total letdown. Luckily, it’s still early. Tonight: The Secret Circle! Starring the girl who kind of annoyed me from Life Unexpected and Gale Harold, WHO WILL NEVER ANNOY ME. What will happen? One can only imagine.