Below is a review of Mark Cuban's new reality show.
'"The Benefactor" may be the stupidest show this season. Maybe any season. "You can't call my show stupid," says billionaire and benefactor Mark Cuban, as he kicks someone off the show for speaking the truth.
Just so we're clear on this, Mark: Your show is stupid. It's unholy stupid, not just plain stupid. And somehow ABC, or the people who dub its review tapes, accidentally reveal the final four contestants -- just after the credits roll on the pilot.
Now that's stupid.
That at least two of the four people at the end are, in fact, stupid should not be a surprise either. But they won't be revealed here because it would be stupid to think that anyone reading this would be stupid enough to care who the final four were.
You're smarter than that, right? Good. And just in case you're in a real hurry, the other new fall series premiering tonight, "LAX," is also stupid. But it's fictional stupid, not reality stupid, with real people acting stupid to win $1 million.
In short, you're free to watch "Monday Night Football" or read a magazine without fear of missing something worthwhile at the start of the fall season.
Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and an entrepreneur who made his money smartly, one would assume, has this weird rivalry going with Donald Trump. Perhaps when this season's third billionaire, Richard Branson, launches his reality show, they can all sling mud at one another on pay-per-view. In the meantime, Trump, never shy about vanquishing an opponent, ought to be positively giddy over the fact that "The Benefactor" is so very -- all together now -- stupid.
There are numerous problems with this series. The biggest is that it doesn't appear to have any rules. If Cuban doesn't like you for any reason whatsoever, you get cut -- sports terminology -- and out the door you go. It seems completely random and, as the hour goes on, patently childish.
Cuban, who seems in person to be your average guy, at home in a sports bar or a frat house or mouthing off on TV, comes across on television as a mercurial jerk. He's the puppet master and the 16 contestants (who are, like every reality show participant, willing to do absolutely anything for the million bucks) are left cowering and whimpering in fear that one false or random move will annoy him and thus return them to a life of dashed dreams and a soulless, unexamined existence.
Which is, frankly, pretty tiring to watch.
The billionaire gets to play God -- even if in his mind he's being kind, generous and enlightening -- but it's not a very good TV show. In fact, let's see here, it's a stupid TV show. It looks as if it were made up on the fly, with bad casting, bad ideas and the misguided notion of copying other lame reality shows. Stupid is as stupid does, and "The Benefactor" does stupid like nobody's business.'