Rumspringa!! Redux

The management caught most of the two-hour (!!) premiere of Amish in the City last night. Despite serious audio problems, the show's astounding quality and weighty social import were abundantly clear. Once again, the UPN is on the cutting edge of televised edutainment. Also abundantly clear is the fact that Amish people are better than the rest of us. Or at least, better than the six "normal people" sharing the Real World-style house with our four rural heroes. As demographic captures go, these six are a real treat: there's "the retahded asshole from Beantown," "the preachy vegan bimbo," "the astoundingly obnoxious, soulless, horrible gay guy," "the really nice Black girl from South-Central LA," "the leather-skinned, beat-down, ultra-trashy fashion chick," and "the really nice guy who's totally hot and will definitely deflower an Amish girl/guy." Favorite character so far is the cute, bikini-clad Amish girl with the mysterious cold sore. All in all, this is high-concept stuff. The ultimate irony is that the girl from the hood relates with the Amish kids on a fairly meaningful level, simply due to her economic circumstances. Everyone else is a buffed-up piece of turd. In other words, they seem perfectly at home on television.