Jersey Shore

Dr. James Dobson's Plugged In Online review of MTV's hit "reality" show.

"Where to begin with Jersey Shore? Must we reiterate that the MTV show, focusing on a clutch of party-hearty tanoholics from the Garden State, has rocketed well beyond cable's reality-show backwaters and into a pop culture phenomenon? Are we required to quote the overseas tagline of "Muscles+gel+tanning bed=sex"?"

"No, let's instead take our cue directly from Jersey Shore's cast by immediately cutting to the chase: This program marks the current low point in the broad genre known as "reality television"—a show so engrossed in its own self-absorbed inanity and depravity as to become a parody of itself and, oddly, a cogent touchstone of the culture at large. It makes Survivor look like Shakespeare, the Osbournes seem like the Cleavers, the Hills appear passably redeemable. Watching it made me want to take antibiotics to ward off whatever infections were being pumped through my flat screen."

"It's an hour a week on TV that's as moral free as you're likely to ever experience without touching the pay-per-view button on the remote. There's more alcohol guzzled in one episode than in all 11 seasons of Cheers and more bleeped (but obvious) f-words than in a George Carlin comedy routine."

"Because of their shared interests, the Jersey Shore gang has bonded, and that's something. After all, they do try to protect each other, more or less, from the arrows and tweets the world might throw. Pauly D even refers to his buds as "family." I don't think he's kidding."

"But that makes Jersey Shore all the more sad, really, because family should be about more than this. The residents of this reality show haven't so much formed a family as they've merely accepted their lot in life: to drink, to hook up, to dance—and to be the willing fools of a weekly peep show, where video voyeurs alternatively mock them and live vicariously through them."