Photo: Karolina Wojtasik/A&E
Show Attempted: Duck Dynasty.
Topic: The Robertson family of Louisiana live down to blue state stereotypes about people who live outside big cities?
How Far I Expected To Get: I mean, there's a reason I'd never seen a second of the show's first three seasons -- not interested in ducks; not interested in rednecks; not interested in beards (see also: Game Of Thrones). But it gets such insane ratings, and I know a surprising number of people who watch it, so I thought I'd give it a pretty fair shot.
How Far I Did Get
What Did It: I know it's silly to be peevish about reality-show fakery -- generally, I think we all accept that if producers didn't nudge their "characters" in certain directions, nothing would happen and there would be no show. But our starting point was that two of the unkempt sons' incongruously gorgeous wives "noticing" that family patriarch Phil and matriarch Kay never had a real wedding, and maybe the kids should surprise them on their fiftieth anniversary with a surprise wedding! First of all, they almost immediately establish that Kay and Phil were married by a Justice of the Peace which is, guess what, a real wedding. Second, the very premise of the episode is clear fraud. Even so, I hung on for another twelve minutes, until we got to the day of the wedding, and a scene where the gorgeous wives specced out the location and their husbands whined and resisted and tried to act like the whole enterprise was a challenge to their manhood and acted all put-upon by their truly gorgeous wives. I know these are country folk, but I don't need to watch a whole TV hour of them oppressing their gorgeous wives when those wives really should leave them, move to L.A., and fulfill their destinies modelling Talbots and Ann Taylor and Not Your Daughter's Jeans.
Worth Taking Another Run At It? ...nah.