House of Horrors

I have to tell you people something. I, in my (X) years, have seen my share of B-A-D television. Actually I've seen my share, your share, and the cast of Ben-Hur's share. I screamed when Tori took over for a suddenly-gone Kellie & Jessie. I still think Beth overreacted for the cameras about David "raping" Tami. I spend a lot of my days wishing they'd put "Love Monkey" back on tv; such a show that transcends mere "bad tv" into "yes, these people are duping me and insulting me and I want more!!!" deserves to be on tv 24/7. And of course I have spent hours of my life screaming at the tv while Dawson and the gang parried one another, one-upping themselves with every possible amazing droplet of self-realization that belied the fact that they were 16, lived in the boondocks and one of them was a Scientologist Hereby in Training (S.H.I.T).

But then, just when you think you’ve topped out after spending months wondering why Flav could even entertain picking New York over Hoops, the Oh-My-God This Is Awful TV Fairy comes and drops a show on you that is so bad on every level, you feel that there is a God and he LOVES you. This is how I felt last night when I turned to E! and started watching…”The Carter House.” Hell, watching this steaming pile of a show, I realized that not only does God love me, but he must owe me something fierce.

To summarize, this is a reality (hahahah!!!) show about Nick Carter (Backstreet really IS back, bitches!!), his oversized house and his 4 mooching, whining siblings that live there. This includes Aaron Carter, who, if I have studied my InTouch and US Weeklys correctly, is some sort of “music” star. I vaguely know him from some lover’s feud between some combination of Lindsey/Paris/Hillary/whothefuckever. Turns out I misunderstood the headlines from this story; upon looking at this show I realize that these girls were not fighting over who got to HAVE this idiot as a boyfriend, but who DIDN’T have him as a boyfriend.

This show is the most high-pitched emotionally fevered show I have ever seen in my life; it opens with some apparent life or death crisis involving their mother, and then somehow gets MORE emotional as the show goes on. Mostly, these people stand around all day in bathing suits and scream at each other, losing their shit. I feel like I’m watching hour three of an 8 year-old black kid’s funeral in Alabama. Every single second is filled with some dramatic “We’re a family!! We have to be here for each other after all we’ve been through!!” screed while Aaron crouches on the ground and tries to look serious while wonderng “Can I get away with these Capri pants?” I’d say the show is a combination of “The Jerry Springer Show” and the Bailey intervention scene in “Party of Five”, but I don’t want to insult the integrity of Springer or teenage alcoholism.

As verbally emotional as these people are, they touch and hug each other a lot too. Here’s Aaron and Nick hugging it out after another fight. Here’s Nick in bed, hugging 2 of his sisters. Here’s Aaron teaching one of his sisters how to spin the pea. Okay, that one I made up, but you get the point. As I’m watching another hug ‘n kiss session I find myself thinking geez, these kids touch each other more than the guys in “Stand by Me” before laughing to myself that this is, of course, mathematically impossible. I don’t know just how insular this family is, but the description of episode 2 on the guide says “Aaron throws a party while Nick is away.” Ooooooh, Im thinking, nice! Nick’s gone, we can have all these smoking hot 22 year old chicks come over in bathing suits wanting to preen for the screen. So the party kicks off and the guest list is…Aaron and his three “maybe one more biscuit away from plumping up to the point of no return” sisters. Hmm. Seriously, about the sisters, I’m pretty sure I have never turned on a reality show with a dinner scene featuring a gallon tub of Country Crock on the table. Nice.

Hey, here’s Aaron curled up on deck chairs by the pool playing slappy-ass with his sisters. Great. But we do get what I know is some foreshadowing: Aaron gets wasted. This is twofold – it allows for the inevitable scene of Nick coming back and having a shouting match about Aaron turning into their father who is SURPRISE-A DRUNK! How can we have a reality show star have a beer without an emotional “you’re just like him!!!!” speech? And, if these producers play their cards right, we can get Lacey Chebert to come back with Scott Wolf to re-create the “Bailey, I loved you the best!” moment during Bai-dog’s intervention.

I guess the main crux of the show is that while the three sisters spend their days eating Nick’s food and trying to guess if big bro was in N Sync or Backstreet Boys, it’s Aaron’s job to challenge Nick’s authority. For instance, in the house is their recording studio. I’d love to hear the “gems” that have come outta this joint. First of all, anthropologists should spend some time with this room, because somehow when he walks through the door into the studio “Aaron”, who as far as I can tell alternates his time flailing on the floor crying about his family and accidentally stepping on the bombs his surely suicidal dog leaves in the kitchen, instantly morphs into “AC”, the whackest stone-cold thug this side of Malibu. His “Boyeeez!!” are in there waiting to work on some mad crazy beats with him, the baseball cap on his head gets spun to the side, and then we’re treated to a few moments of AC hitting some pretend buttons while his Boyeeez! online shop for boats with the money they’re getting for babysitting Casper the Friendly Idiot. The prize moment on tv though, is all of a sudden AC is alone listening to his newest song, and he starts doing some awful hip-hop dance, complete with flashing gang signs for the camera. First of all I’m like dude…did we learn NOTHING from the K-Fed video???!?!?! SIT DOWN!!! As I’m watching stunned I start cracking up, because unlike most segments in this MTV world, this one I notice is going on a lot longer, and I know that the scene of this spazz-dance is so dynamite I can hear the director in the editing room “Oh,wow….let it go…keep going, don’t cut yet! Let it roll!” Unreal.

A problem comes up between AC and Nick because as it turns out AC likes to drop his dope rhymes late at night, when Nick wants to sleep. He can't sleep with the noise, although he doesn't seem to mind sleeping while there's a dude by his bed holding a camera. Hmm. Finally Nick can't take it any more and he storms out into the studio, screaming at AC that he’s trying to sleep, why can’t he do this during the day? While AC is screaming at Nick “don’t dis me, bro!” the viewer comes to the conclusion that obviously AC’s Boyeez aren’t gonna take time from their real day jobs to come do this shit. This fight goes on just long enough for one to realize…this is a multi-million dollar house, with a huge million-dollar studio built in with money earned from Nick and Aaron being….well, I’ll use this word cause I don’t have ALL day to spend finding the appropriate one…”musicians”, yet it never occurred to them to, you know, soundproof it? What the fuck? Rosie O’ Donnell should be able to do pilates in this house without waking up Nick, but these idiots never thought “maybe we can throw some egg crates on the walls?”

Anyway, after some screeching/crying they compromise, and then because they realize it’s been 7 minutes since they’ve last discussed it all five siblings have a shouting match about how screwed up their mother is, how she might be in trouble, how at least they have each other after the awful hand life has handed them, Aaron says “You guys wanna hear the song I’m working on?” Listen to a new AC joint? Jesus Christ, I think, haven’t these people already been through enough? Jesus.

To top it off, by the end of two episodes we have no idea what’s wrong with their mother. In the first minute of the first episode we’re led to believe they’re mom is in a hospital and might die…but then you realize here we are a week later and they’re all still at the house with a now empty tub of Country Crock. Needless to say, I’m hooked for life.