Have you ever turned on the TV to watch something and found yourself several hours later still in front of the screen, wondering where all the time went? There's a certain subsection of television that is so addicting it becomes almost impossible to turn off. The kind of show that you don't even really intend to be watching, but once you start you just can't stop. Below are the five shows that could easily turn us into insomniacs:
Tabatha Takes Over
Bravo knows a little something about addictive guilty pleasure shows. Turn on Bravo at any point and you can be sure to see flipping tables, flipping out and enough Botox to paralyze an elephant. Tabatha Takes Over hews closer to Bravo's more classy, competitive reality fare but with a dash of tawdry fun added in. It's impossible to turn off this renovation reality show, where Tabatha uses her signature brand of verbal take-downs to help struggling businesses.
I don't know a single person who hasn't lost hours of their lives to an America's Next Top Model marathon. What is it about the Tyra Banks modeling reality show that makes it nearly impossible to turn off? Is it the crazy, catty contestants? The photo-shoots that get weirder and weirder as the years progress? Or perhaps it's Tyra herself, manically telling these modeling ingenues to smile with their eyes in a house wallpapered with portraits of herself? Whatever it is, I want those hours of my life back.
Bridezillas
Why do we love to watch awful people do awful things? If someone could cure the human race of this desire we could finally rid ourselves of Jersey Shore. Unfortunately, there's something intensely satisfying about watching a woman throw her own wedding cake on the ground or try to poison a groomsman with laxative brownies. It doesn't help that all Bridezilla episodes keep to a format of introducing one crazy bride's story while wrapping up the previous week's nightmare bride. Put the episodes back-to-back in a marathon and this format becomes deadly. Kiss your brain cells goodbye.
Extreme Couponing
The best thing to come out of the down economy is this addictive reality show about the people who make clipping coupons into a mathematical art form. You turn on the TV intending to just watch one episode of the savings-centered show and, much the way couponers build up a stockpile of savings, soon find yourself 10 episodes deep with no end in sight. The worst part of watching Extreme Couponing is that it normalizes this crazy couponing behavior. Soon you start thinking to yourself, "I could use 10 years' worth of deodorant," and that's when you know you need to go watch a marathon of Intervention.
Storage Wars
Yuuuup, it's hard not to get addicted to this series about the gamblers who bet increasingly extreme amounts of money on storage units in the hope of unearthing some hidden treasure. The show has a delightfully effective format and a cast of kooky characters. My personal favorite is Barry, an eccentric collector who often shows up to the storage auctions with psychics, motorized airplanes and leather-clad little people in tow. If that isn't enough to get you to watch a marathon of the A&E reality series, I don't know what is.
What are some of the shows you just can't turn off? Sound off in the comments!
