Drop and Give Me Twenty: Military Fall Fashion 2012

Gentle reader,

I’m not really sure how I ended up watching the premiere episode of this military-themed competition show Stars Earn Stripes but I did so I might as well own up to it.  As you’d probably guess, the “stars” of the title have been plucked from near obscurity to be on this show because real stars are kind of busy.  The only ones I’d heard of were Jessica Simpson’s ex Nick Lachey and Dean Cain, who played Superman at some point.  And I’m not even sure about those two.

The challenges, on the other hand, are definitely kick-ass.  When you drop an untrained would-be celebrity from a helicopter into a murky lake wearing seventy pounds of combat gear and expect him to swim for a boat, then crawl through mud to a shooting range and take out several targets before blowing up an outhouse with a crate full of explosives, you know these bitches are serious.  Even so, watching the same progression of events four times gets a little tedious until the two biggest, blackest, toughest guys both nearly drown right off the bat and have to be fished out of the damn water.  They say white guys can’t jump but it looks like black guys can’t swim, either.