A while back the gym I go to semi-regularly installed flat panel TVs so that their customers would forget how unbelievably boring it is to run on a treadmill. At the time they installed the TVs they turned off the hot water in the showers, now they have hot water again and I think that’s a good thing. Exactly why installing the TVs made it necessary to turn off the hot water, I don’t know.

I tend to do my cycling and running in front of a TV tuned to MTV. Oh, MTV, I long for the days when you were actually MTV and not the reality TV and Jamba (or Jamster for the American readers) advertising channel you’ve turned into today. For those of you too young to remember, the “M” in MTV actually stands for “Music”. Who would’ve thunk it? The channel used to air a lot of music videos, only interrupted by the odd MTV News show. Now it’s mostly reality TV, or probably in some cases, fake reality TV, with a few music videos every now and then just for the heck of it.

During my normal work out times, MTV is showing The X Effect and Dismissed. These two shows have made me lose a little of my faith in human kind.

In The X Effect, two happy couples are invited to spend the weekend at a luxurious hotel. But behold, the man in couple one is the the ex boyfriend of the woman in couple two! Suddenly their partners have to leave the hotel due to some emergency and the ex couple “accidentally” bumps into each other. What they don’t know is that their partners are still at the hotel, where they can spy on the ex boyfriend and ex girlfriend while MTV do their best to set a romantic scene. Will they be faithful or not? You make a qualified guess. At the end of the weekend the exes will have to chose between their ex boyfriend or ex girlfriend and their new partner. Fantastic TV! MTV is generous enough to let you watch a full episode here. Thank you, MTV!

The idea behind Dismissed is similar in the sense that it involves hot women and tanned hunks. Two women and one guy, or two guys and one woman meet up somewhere in Miami, usually at the beach as it involves having as little clothes on as possible. The two women (or two guys) have to impress the other sex to be picked when the evening is over. Each of the two contestants are given a time out card they can use to get some quality time alone with the price - the lone man or woman. This alone time is usually used for making out, or making desperate attempts at sticking once tongue down the other person’s throat. Jell-O wrestling anyone? Just tune in to Dismissed. The show was recorded way back in 2001, then cancelled and probably replaced by something even better.

What’s most interesting is that these two shows are actually strangely entertaining as long as the sound is off. Yes, I hear my brain cell dying, but I forget how unbelievably boring it is to run on a treadmill.