Tuned In

The Morning After: Bam! Therapy

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Am I enabling Jon & Kate Gosselin by continuing to write Morning After posts on their show? Am I performing a service by watching so that you don’t have to? I don’t know, but there is something fascinating about the resolute way that the show has decided to slog on through season 5—this is the family business, we will grit our teeth and do our job and you will like it—while largely ignoring the tabloid stresses on the relationship of the parents of eight. 

So last night, J&K and the family spent a day in an activity every American family can relate to: having star chef Emeril Lagasse come to their kitchen and cook with them. It seemed like a bizarre choice, but the logic soon became clear, and kind of cynically ingenious. How do we take a show that’s supposed to be about a marriage, and force two people—who evidently can scarcely bear to be together—to do the same thing in the same place without it being awkward and forced?

I know! We’ll turn every episode into another TV show! Because TV hosts who can’t stand each other grin and bear it for the cameras all the time! And that’s what Jon and Kate are now: they are the hosts of their own marriage. So this week J&K+8 becomes a cooking show. Next week it becomes American Chopper. The week after that—who knows? Maybe they’ll go on What Not to Wear? Your suggestions are welcome in the comments; I’m sure the producers will take any they can get at this point.