I’ve openly admitted to my unhealthy addiction to reality television. But what is it exactly that draws me in again and again and again?

I love it because it can be as surprising as it is predictable. Take, for example, the classic winner-loser scenarios you see on shows like the Real World/Road Rules Gauntlet or America’s Next Top Model. There’s a tendency to draw you away from the actual outcome of a competition via editing, with clips convincing you that a particular person is weak or has no chance of coming out victorious. This same set-up is flipped when a person comes off as ultra-strong or as the obvious frontrunner. In either scenario, the underdog is bound to win, and the apparent winner is bound to lose, or will come very close to losing. A classic example of this editing technique happened recently on The Bachelor Paris, in which Sarah B. from Canada — who had a strong initial attraction to Bachelor Travis — takes him home to meet the folks, makes out with him plenty, talks about how confident she is about getting a rose, how happy she is, how she’s falling in love, blah, blah, blah … and BAM! The final rose goes to someone else and she’s left sobbing in her drink. Take note: anytime someone talks a big game, and you see more than one clip of said person talking about how well things are going, he or she will inevitably get the ax shortly after.

The unpredictable factor comes with shows that I expect to be really bad, and which are really bad, but have something truly appealing and/or freakish that keeps me coming back for more. If you’ve seen The Flava of Love or Meet the Barkers, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The former is Flava Flav’s third reality show on VH1, and it features all kinds of totally abnormal women vying for his attention. I call them abnormal because after two dates with Flav, if they were normal women, they would’ve been running for the hills regardless of whatever money they assume he has, ’cause quite frankly, the dude has no game and no shame, which would be okay if he didn’t come off as a complete imbecile at least 75 percent of the time. (This is, of course, exactly the reason I watch.) As far as the Barkers go, the whole “our love is anything but ordinary” thing is definitely not true (we all like to believe that our relationships are unique, celebrities even more so than us regular folks), but they are particularly adorable, and I like seeing how tough, totally-tattooed Travis Barker is a complete softie when it comes to his family. Please note: Liking Blink-182 is not a requirement of watching this show; in fact, if I ever heard another B182 song, it would be too soon.

Reality TV Recommendation: Project Jay on BRAVO, which follows Project Runway’s first winner as he moves to New York City to start working on and marketing his own clothing line (Editor’s Note: Project Runway is a quality reality show on cable about clothing designers, where the competitors are actually talented, artistic individuals.)

This article appears in Feb 8-14, 2006.