All the usual broadcast rules have officially been suspended. The TV tryout season is upon us.
Summer's here and the time is right for American networks to test strange new reality-TV concepts that would likely never see the light of day during the regular season.
Would ABC ever attempt to launch a show like Downfall wherein contestants frantically try to answer questions while prizes roll along a conveyor belt and off the side of a building during the regular season? Not a chance, but in the summer, the network took the chance that a crazy idea just might click.
Sometimes it does. American Idol, Survivor, Dancing with the Stars, Big Brother and So You Think You Can Dance all launched during the summer and at last check each franchise was still running smoothly.
And if a summer series doesn't work out, who cares? Viewers are woozy from the heat and unlikely to attach much loyalty to a reality-TV experiment. Does anybody remember Nashville Star, Celebrity Circus, Ex-Wives Club or Average Joe? Even the people who worked on those shows have forgotten them.
So far this summer, the reality universe has expanded with Mall Cops: Mall of America, Work of Art: The Next Great Artist, Police Women of Memphis and the second go-around for True Beauty. Consider those shows the warm-up for three new and truly unusual reality oddities which, for no discernible reason, all debut in succession next Tuesday night.
Weird
Breakthrough with Tony Robbins (Tuesday, NBC at 8 p.m.) features the self-help guru whose infomercials have clogged late-night airwaves for two decades. The Robbins message of self-empowerment will reach a much broader audience on network television.
"It's very helpful for everybody if you reach more people," Robbins recently told the website Zap2it, but if this is The Wizard of Oz, it's got to be about Dorothy. If it's about Tony, someone at home can't make the changes. My hope is that the things you see me do with these people - or more importantly, that I've created for these people to do - you can go and do yourself."
Breakthrough is booked for a six-week run, and Robbins sets the bar pretty high in the first episode, which focuses on newlyweds Frank and Kristen. At their wedding ceremony last year, the couple celebrated their union by jumping into a resort swimming pool. Frank broke his neck in two places.
Now, Frank is confined to a wheelchair and never wants to leave the house; Kristen is relegated to being his full-time caregiver.
In baby steps, Robbins teaches Frank how to be more independent, and urges Kristen toward an "impossibly scary" act to make her realize anything is possible.
Mostly, Breakthrough is a condensed version of the motivational method espoused in Robbins's seminars and books. The difference on network TV? Operators are not standing by.
Weirder
MasterChef (Tuesday, Fox at 9 p.m.) is further evidence that the Fox Network is either in love with Gordon Ramsay or deathly afraid of him.
The mad chef brought MasterChef to Fox, which already airs the Ramsay food-reality series Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares. On this occasion, Ramsay is looking for the best home cook in America.
But before the honour is bestowed, they must bow to the master. In the first show, 50 amateur chefs are flown to Los Angeles to present their signature dish to Ramsay and two other judges, a restaurateur and a four-star chef.
The kindest comment from Ramsay is 'bloody awful'; the harshest critiques are bleeped out, as in his other shows. Contestants are naturally reduced to tears.
In recent interviews, Ramsay keeps referring to the show as "Chef Idol," but even Simon Cowell wasn't this nasty.
Weirdest
Growing Up Twisted (Tuesday, A&E at 10 p.m.), an "unscripted" series, follows the daily life of Dee Snider, ex-frontman for the 1980s' metal group Twisted Sister (look in the dictionary under One-Hit Wonders). In the vein of A&E's Gene Simmons Family Jewels, the show attempts to depict Snider as a devoted family man, but still a rock 'n' roll animal.
As always, it's unsettling to see a 55-year-old man who still wears stage makeup, death's-head jewellery and leather pants.
Filmed primarily at Snider's Long Island manse, the show devotes equal screen time to his braying biker-chick wife Suzette and their four kids, aged 13 to 27. Everyone hams it up for the cameras, of course.
The show premieres with back-to-back episodes. And what sort of shenanigans does the Snider clan get up to? In the opener, Dee gets a new tattoo. In the second show, everyone attends the christening of Dee's granddaughter. Yes, the man who sang We're Not Gonna Take It is now a grandfather. Reality can be a bitch.