TV: Who will be eliminated next? Uh, me.

I'm surprised to hear myself say this (or see myself write this, I guess would be more accurate), but I think I'm sick of The Amazing Race.

I've long championed TAR (as we cool people like to call it) as the best reality show on TV. And it still is, not that that's such a difficult thing to accomplish in a field that includes Wife Swap and the upcoming Who's Your Daddy? Even the good ones, like Survivor, pale in comparison. TAR has it all: gorgeous, exotic locations, challenging and exciting tasks, and an elimination process based on merit alone. No ganging up on the strong teams to vote them out, no "firing" a team on a whim. If you're last, you're eliminated. Simple and elegant.

But the casting directors have gone overboard in the last two seasons trying to find "dramatic" teams, teams they can sell on commercials -- meaning horrible, horrible people. Rather than the organic method of producing villains in earlier seasons -- let the pressure of the race bring out the worst -- the producers now appear to be specifically seeking awful, evil people during the audition process, people who are guaranteed to explode with fury and insanity for the cameras. Not only are they casting more villains (the ratio of teams to root for as opposed to teams to root against has been shifting in favor of the "against" faction since season one, to the point where, in this season and the previous one, there wasn't a single team I wanted to win), but also the main villains (there's always one team that deserves hatred far more than any other team) have gotten progressively more villainous. This latest season, the team to hate is Jonathan and Victoria. She's bad enough, a bitchy walking ad for the dangers of excessive Botox, but Jonathan... he is just the most vile human being ever to hit the airwaves. In last week's episode, he screamed and berated his struggling partner, who had shouldered both their backpacks after he dropped his, until she burst into agonized tears; then, at the finish line, he screamed at her some more, and actually shoved her while telling her how useless she was.

Actually, I didn't even see that. I read about it online. Because enough's enough. I don't want to spend time with any of these people. I've got two unwatched episodes already stored up on my TiVo, because I can't generate the interest to watch them, and last week, when I went to TiVo TAR, I discovered that there were already two programs scheduled for recording (TiVo can only record two shows at once). One program was a repeat of Gilmore Girls, the other was a repeat of Scrubs. And I just shrugged and said, Fine. I couldn't be bothered to change the recording setup away from one of two shows I'd already seen to record a brand new episode of TAR. I just couldn't be bothered.

It's a shame. I'm sure the race is taking the teams to all the same kinds of fantastic locations round the world, I'm sure the challenges are just as unique and fun, I'm sure the tension and excitement match the levels set in previous seasons. But I don't give a rat's ass about anyone participating. My feelings toward these people range from mild disinterest on the high end of the spectrum all the way down to world-devouring rage. I don't want to see any of these people rewarded. I think I'm going to delete the episodes I've got saved and write this season off as a loss. Maybe I'll check back next season, although by then, the producers will probably be recruiting the teams straight from Death Row.