I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! Episode 2 Recap: The Heidi and Spencer Show

After one episode, I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! is already making headlines. Apparently Heidi and Spencer quit the show after the live segment of last night's premiere. But how will this affect the pre-taped footage and how it's presented? Unless NBC is totally clueless, we're about to find out. With any luck, we'll get to see Heidi and Spencer a bit more in old footage before they leave us forever (or at least until their next television debacle).

Act One:
We begin with the end of last night's Trauma Tank (an appropriate metaphor for the entire show, I think). What's weird about this challenge is that Heidi AND Spencer are sitting out but there's only one empty plank. What would they have done if they had decided to participate? Kind of leads me to believe that Heidi and Spencer's departure was known to the producers before last night's episode aired, and they were just waiting to leave (probably at the producers' request) until after the premiere.

Also, I thought waterboarding was considered torture now? Maybe it's legal in Costa Rica, 'cause it looks like that's exactly what they're doing. But it's nothing compared to Heidi's idea "torture," outlined last night, which includes taking away toiletries and changes of clothing. A tarantula on the face is nothing compared to sleeping in a hammock instead of a bed.

Act Two:
Angela's meltdowns are hilarious. Is this part of her comedy act? If so, more comics should play the "jungle scared" card. It's terrifyingly funny.

Through this act, Heidi and Spencer are still around. I guess they didn't have time to re-cut all the footage, but they haven't even mentioned it, not even in the live segments. A bit odd. I guess it's better than cutting them out, since they are the most dramatic part of the show. And the entire food challenge revolves around the two of them. Too bad neither one of them likes fish. That's karma.

Act Three:
Wouldn't a room with rats, bats, snakes, insects, and eel slime be scarier if you could see what was going on? A pitch black room is a pitch black room. It might've made the challenge harder, but I wanted to see Heidi squirm a bit more.

Act Four:
I'm not sure I needed to see Spencer's fake baptism, performed by Stephen Baldwin. That was a throwaway act.

Act Five:
When Spencer was announcing that they were leaving, he said he could not do what Torrie just did. But what did Torrie just do? I think the timeline of this footage is shaky. Did they re-edit the episodes last night, after Heidi and Spencer decided to leave? If all this footage was taped a while ago and pre-edited, then it seems pretty clear that Heidi and Spencer quit the show a while ago but NBC embargoed that information and forced them to go back for the live taping of the first episode (the trauma tank). Is that possible? It's all very confusing... and probably a huge waste of time to think about. But it really is detracting from the true dramatic situations on the show.

Act Six:
YES! The guys saved Patti Blagojevich! I don't know why they did it, but that's exactly what I was hoping for.

The live segment got a bit awkward. I guess that's part of its appeal. We were watching them for a good thirty seconds while they didn't realize the cameras were still on. Even though most of the conversation was about whether or not they were still live, it was a pretty fascinating look at the kind of footage that normally gets cut out of these reality shows. Poor editors.

NOTE: No real answers about Heidi and Spencer. My guess is they quit a while ago, but I'm not sure when this was taped. Anyone out there have any idea? Whatever the answer, I'm sad. Of the nine celebrities left, I don't know who to hate. I actually kind of like most of them. It was a lot easier with Heidi and Spencer around. Oh well.

Comments

[gdimelow]

Full article at www.p0pvulture.blogspot.com

Still, the 48 hours they spent in the camp were eventful enough, with Spencer volunteering to be baptised by runt-of-th­e-Baldwin-­litter Stephen and Heidi declaring "My goal is to be a true disciple of Jesus, a Mother Teresa helping the poor and the hungry." Funnily enough, I believe Mother Teresa laid down the original demo vocals for Heidi's single 'Overdosin'. Unfortunately for viewers and masochists alike, Spencer and Heidi found it all a bit too much, and decided to leave, claiming "Super-celebrities don't belong in the jungle. They belong in Hollywood with the paparazzi."

Having already threatened to quit twice during the first day in the camp, the doltish duo finally left the show, only for Spencer to take to Twitter 24 hours later, claiming "I am praying to Jesus to have NBC forgive me and allow Speidi back! The jungle makes you do crazy things." Aside from the fact that deities have busy day jobs and probably aren't too concerned with who's drinking intestine milkshakes on a bush-tucker trial, I'm more concerned with the fact that Pratt feels perfectly comfortable referring to himself and his wife in the third person singular.

My 'Speidi' sense is tingling, I think I'm going to be sick. And I haven't even had to eat any jungle critters...

[organic01]

what's up with all the prayers, baptizing and christian crap. WTF does anyone else see the hypocracy?

[Tallulah Morehead - Huffpost Blogger]

A supposed Christian who says he "loves Revenge"? Yes, I saw the hypocrisy.

All the religiosity is making me ill. I haven't seen so much praying since I quit my parent's stupid church 40 years ago. No wonder these people are all Z-list celebs; they're all too stupid to see through the lies that are religion.

[Nick Park]

Quit. Un-quit. Quit. Un-quit? Another Baldwin on the way to the jungle? The producers are either geniuses for planning this, or the luckiest schmucks this side of tv land since Oprah's last car give away. For better or worse, the so-called "live" reality show is here to stay. The tabloid drama is too juicy to pass up. At least we don't have to watch Roddy Blagojevich try to sell his spot in the trauma tank!

[Dirtybird12]

Rob,

I feel that Spencer and Heidi should be banned from TV for the stunt they pulled. The Charities they represented should have to be paid the amount of money they would have earned out of Spencer and Heidi's Pockets. Cry me a river Heidi, your shampoo labels are missing.... aww what a tragedy... And Spencer the "non reality" star who is on the Hills...cough cough.. " A reality Show" give me a break... go cry to mommy and daddy and ask for more money. Rob give me more to read, I enjoy your blog. Maybe you should be writing Spencer's new material since he is in desperate need of a script. In all honesty I don't think he deserves the opportunity to be graced by your pen.

[Tallulah Morehead - Huffpost Blogger]

How do you ban someone from TV? It's a free country. There's no TV Czar. Even walking tools like Spencer Pratt are allowed on. Besides, what would THE SOUP do without him? Expect this week's THE SOUP to be all clips of this show.

[rmbjspd]

here's my hypothesis:

they showed the trauma tank, and continued filming everyone that night, up to and including heidi and spencers actual departure. Everything else (food challenge, etc.) was from before the trauma tank took place, meaning most of the stuff on the first episode was probably from day one. They are really playing fast and loose with the whole chronology thing, especially given that they only have two or so days of footage. Actually, it makes sense the pretaped stuff would be a day behind, so that the editors get a day of editing footage to run prior to the live section, instead of having to wait for whatever was happening that day.

Of course, this playing fast and loose with chronology stuff is ridiculous. it just makes a terrible show, amazingly, even worse.

[Rob Cohen - Huffpost Blogger]

I think you must be right. But why don't they just tell us? Why keep it a mystery? It OBVIOUSLY happened in the past, so why keep us wondering if it was just one day before or longer than that?

[JJWikki11]

The same reason there is drama at the end of romantic comedies and Glambert hasn't explicitly said the words "Yes, America, I'm a big homosexual" -- it keeps us guessing even though we already know the answer.