I am utterly baffled by the success of Dancing with the Stars, given all of the wonderful shows that have pitiful ratings. But checking out its new clone, Skating with Celebrities (Fox, Mondays, 8 p.m.; premieres January 18 at 9 p.m.), I caught a glimpse of why people might enjoy shows like this, or at the very least why they're not as offensive as your average reality show.
Like Dancing, Skating pairs D-level "stars" with experts who are supposed to train them to ice skate, after which each duo performs for a panel of judges. Teams with low scores are eliminated until only one remains. Although both are billed as reality shows, Dancing and Skating bear far more resemblance to celebrity editions of game shows. Skating doesn't force these washed-up celebrities to live together and it doesn't tape their every move. There is a certain fascination in watching former Diff'rent Strokes star Todd Bridges fall on his ass on the ice, but it's not so much malicious as sympathetic. You laugh when he falls over, but only because he gets back up.
In that way, Skating is really quite quaint and old-fashioned. It harks back to a time when celebrities, even those for whom the designation was shaky at best, were treated with a sort of gentle reverence. You get the sense from Skating that people like Deborah Gibson and Bruce Jenner all hang out at some celebrity clubhouse, and any competition on the show is treated like friendly rivalry among old chums. It's like watching old episodes of Match Game on GSN, with the modern-day versions of Charles Nelson Reilly and Bea Arthur.
Skating is innocuous, then, but that doesn't mean it's actually good. If you like figure skating and you like desperate has-beens, then this might be the show for you, but it's still awkward and derivative. The three judges follow the American Idol format (with perky Dorothy Hamill in the Paula Abdul role), and the idea is obviously copied right from Dancing with the Stars. Whether it'll be as big a hit remains to be seen, but at least you won't feel dirty while watching it.
Meanwhile, midseason replacements continue to debut on network TV, with two more disappointing entries this week. Crumbs (ABC, Thursdays, 9:30 p.m.) is yet another abominable sitcom in a season that started off with so many promising comedy debuts. The show follows a dysfunctional family with similar dynamics to the clan on another terrible show, CBS's Out of Practice. Fred Savage does his best as the likeable brother holding everything together, but Jane Curtin is shrill and grating as the loopy mom, and the jokes are nearly as irritating and tired as those on last week's comedic black hole Four Kings.
Faring slightly better is the comedic drama Love Monkey (CBS, Tuesdays, 10 p.m.), another Sex and the City-style show about an urban professional looking for romance. Like ABC's Jake in Progress, this is a male version of the formula, with Ed's Tom Cavanaugh as a music industry A&R guy trying to find his soulmate. The show is unoriginal but sort of charming at times, and buoyed by Cavanaugh's charisma. Its main problem, though, is its desperation to appear hip by dropping constant musical references. An egregious Bob Dylan-related error in the first episode (no, The Essential Bob Dylan does not contain every song he ever recorded) serves only to remind music fans how out of touch the show really is.