‘Big Brother After Dark’ a voyeuristic creep show

Let's face it, bad reality shows have become just another part of summer we all have to put up with. Like days when it hits 115 degrees in the shade, and that guy at work who complains every time it does.

Seriously, it's the desert; if you don't like it, leave. That way, there will be more electricity for my central air unit, the window unit, the swamp cooler, the freezer I keep open around the clock and the ceiling fan I made from the blades of an Apache attack helicopter.

But back to reality. It just wouldn't be July without "Big Brother" (9 p.m. Tuesdays and 8 p.m. Thursdays and Sundays, KLAS-TV, Channel 8). Although, with apologies to Las Vegas cocktail waitress Amber Siyavus, who just survived this season's first elimination, and other local "Big Brother" alumni, the show is easily the lamest of the networks' reality institutions.

Contestants move into a comfy house, then they talk. And talk. And talk some more, until they eventually get voted out of the house. At which point, they talk about what it was like doing all that talking. Year in and year out, it's just like watching paint dry.

But this year there's "Big Brother After Dark" (midnight daily, Showtime Too), a three-hour, live-on-the-East Coast, voyeuristic look inside the house. (Similar footage has been available for years on the Internet, although at a cost of $14.99 a month.) Despite the titillating promos and the sexy title, it, too, is just like watching paint dry -- in your neighbors' house, through a pair of binoculars.

Just how mind-numbing is "After Dark"? Go to your nearest community pool and pick a group of four or more 20-somethings. Then listen to every last word they say, every awkward silence, every bad Borat impression, until you want to rip off your ears and hurl them someplace more interesting. If you last longer than it took you to read this paragraph, you're obviously the target audience for this mess.

"After Dark" promos promise "It's everything they want to show you on network TV but can't." Really? Network TV wants to show me close-ups of people brushing their teeth? Network TV wants to show me people complaining about how tired they are and that time on the water slide when water shot up their butt?

The other night, I spent a good 10 minutes watching some overly tattooed guy, let's call him Tommy Lee's Uncle, assemble a Slip 'n Slide. A few days later, I was treated to seven uninterrupted minutes of him smoking, quietly and alone.

But, just when it seemed nothing exciting would ever happen, two of the female houseguests entered the shower, and through its fogged-up doors, viewers finally had that much-ballyhooed front-row seat as the girls ... rinsed off in their bikinis. Racy!

Don't get me wrong. It's not like I need something graphic to happen -- the funny thing is, the "action" is occasionally interrupted by far-more-scandalous promos for David Duchovny's upcoming comedy series, complete with nudity and a nun performing a sex act in a church -- its just that sex is so obviously this show's reason for being. It's like tuning in to "CSI: Miami" and not seeing at least one David Caruso-removing-his-shades one-liners. There's just something missing.

So far, there has been nothing on the "After Dark" episodes to compete with the CBS footage of this season's YouTube-iest moment yet: Jen, the "stripperkini"-wearing fitness model/nanny to the luckiest 13-year-old boy on the planet, and her hysterical crying jag after seeing her (perfectly decent) official "Big Brother" photo.

Complaining about some phantom "weird shadow" and covering the picture so none of her amused-yet-horrified housemates could see it, she started blubbering uncontrollably, as though she'd just been traded to NBC's "The Singing Bee."

"It's, like, really bad lighting, and a really bad angle," she wailed, fighting through nearly as many tears as Weepy Weeperson -- the frizzy-haired girl from NBC's "Age of Love" who sobs as often as other people exhale -- has shed all season. "And, like, it looks like I have things on my face I don't even have. It's really bad."

Just like the show. Although I'm not sure what I was expecting. Considering CBS has never been able to craft 8,568 hours of video each week -- that's 51 cameras running 24 hours a day -- into three compelling hours, a nightly three-hour dose of raw, more-than-a-little-creepy surveillance footage never really stood a chance.

Reality roundup: Local celebrity impersonators Trent Carlini (Elvis), Sebastian Anzaldo (Frank Sinatra) and Sharon Owens (Barbra Steisand) will compete for $100,000 in the finals of "The Next Best Thing" (8 p.m. Wednesday, KTNV-TV, Channel 13).

"Design Star," which has moved to Las Vegas for its second season, kicks off its search for the next HGTV host with a casting special (10 p.m. Sunday, HGTV).

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Mondays. E-mail him at clawrence@reviewjournal.com.