These were my initial impressions of the Jon and Kate Plus 8 nightmare, summer of 2009:
I hate covering reality programming in my entertainment reports. Unless it's a competition show like American Idol, Top Chef, or So You Think You Can Dance, reality shows tend to leave me covered in an oily film that won't budge with any amount of Ajax and vigorous rubbing. So when the Jon and Kate Plus 8 drama started to unfurl a couple of months ago, I held off as long as I could.
I had seen the show, I was familiar with the archetypes represented by overbearing and bossy Kate and laid-back (catatonic?) Jon. Yes, she had a tendency to emasculate. No, he had very little idea what was actually going on at any given moment. The children are all very cute and age-appropriately irritating. Fine, capitalize on your ridiculous decision to bring sextuplets into the world. You can afford their therapy when they grow up. And then came the adultery and lying and cries of "woe is me with my huge house and motorcycle and free vacations--all these cameras are just too much!" And that's when it became a publicity juggernaut.
So now the Gosselins are doing the decidedly un-Christian thing and calling it quits on their marriage with no visible attempt to get counseling or outside help. The show will continue taping after a brief hiatus, since they owe TLC 40 episodes this year-- and we the viewer will get to watch these kids transition through one of the most difficult periods of their lives. It's just gross. TLC and both parents will shower them with more presents, more trips, more toys, in an effort to keep them happy enough to smile and giggle and act like kids who do NOT have freshly divorced parents. This whole situation and the fact that any of the Gosselin children will be able to see their parents' marriage implode on tape for eternity is how people end up drinking themselves to death, or getting married 7 times, or getting knocked up at 16. This is how people end up with tassles on their boobs with a stage name like Dusty or Blaze.
Jon's attitude on the "special episode" was ridiculous. He let Kate rule the roost, huh? Perhaps because she was the one who gathered together all of the disparate pieces of their lives, public and private, and kept them on track. Jon, in the meantime, acts out like one of the children when he feels slighted, instead of having a real live conversation with his wife. Maybe if he had spent more time reading and less time flirting in high school he'd be articulate enough to communicate his needs. Jon is going to end up one of those sad sack paunchy guys with a suspiciously full head of hair-plugged hair that attempts to fit into the Big City lifestyle and recapture his early 20's as if he had never contributed to the creation of 8 defenseless yet powerfully noisy small people. "Hey hey," he'll say all swagger and bratty frat boy attitude, and try to pass himself off as a swinging single who just happened to have some TV exposure once a long time ago. And then the girls will recognize him and throw drinks in his face and kick him in the shins because he's got 8 FRICKIN' KIDS and should act like it. He's an immature tool.
And the first person to come up with a reality show that blends that dating show The Cougar and a Brady Bunch style reality show tracking blended families should sign Kate up now. It'll be her weekend to have all 8 of hers, and she'll go on a group date with some random man that has 7 kids of his own and then they'll get married and film it and call it Kate and Dean Plus 15! or whatever. Before then she will have abruptly switched her public persona from one who is overbearing and mean to the one who wanted to work the marriage out, and she'll have climbed up on her cross and firmly nailed herself there.
And the kids will hate them forever.
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