I am learning SO MUCH from television this season, folks. And not learning, like, “a duck’s quack doesn’t echo” and other bs that will never serve you well in life that you find on the underside of Snapple caps but learning, like, “Snap judgements are bad!” and really, really important things that I didn’t think anyone would impart to me after losing Mister Rogers, may he rest in peace for ever in the land of make believe after enjoying that final trolley ride to the sky.

Example one: Lisa Loeb

and I thought what I felt was simple… and I thought that I don’t belong…  

(And please, please, please VH1, if you do nothing else with your slightly pathetic existence justified only by The Flava of Love and a new show I’ll get into in a few paragraphs– PLEASE bring back Pop-Up Video. I can think of no better way to combine my love of reading with my love of mindless television. (counterintuitive, no? My father is still trying to figure me out). I also still find myself quoting the pop-up videos of my youth– in a recent conversation about astrology I heard myself say “Geminis have a tendency to overacessorize,” which is straight off of the Madonna video that has the tiger in it. Borderline, maybe? I think she’s also pictured on a gondola in it. Also, I was recently informed that there’s a pop-up video-esque element to the special features on the Bring It On DVD, which is a small but awesome comfort re: the lack of “info nuggets” in my life).

Lisa, you’re as cute as a button and everyone knows it. And I vaguely remember from the above-mentioned pop-up video that you were the only unsigned artist in the history of the world ever to have a #1 single with Reality Bites’s “Stay,” which inspired many tortured coffee house performances by various members of my high school. I actually bought that other album of yours, the one with the song that goes “and you joked with the ghost in the back of myyyyyy head!” or something. You’re kind of Liz Phair-light, and I like you.

But oh, I was prepared to hate this reality show. It’s called “#1 Single”– get it?! In that she is both a recording artist AND looking for someone to date? Clever! I have a knee-jerk reaction to anyone who says that they want to “prioritize their personal life” over their careers– it makes you sound like you’re one step away from writing a book about how to marry a rich guy while you wait for someone 15 years your senior to swoop in and take care of that AmEx bill you’ve been padding since college– so when I saw the promos for this I thought “Pseudo-celeb has-been hawking herself on cable.” But there are times when even I am closed minded… when you say, I only hear what I want to… and I was so wrong about you, Lisa.

This show is the cutest thing on earth. Yes, she is flanked by her horrible plastic-looking sister who I don’t believe shares DNA with her at all, but Lisa herself is continually the cutest thing on earth. I wish I had another word to describe this show, but I spent three years in a sorority where we snapped whenever we wanted to show agreement with something and, thusly, I am limited in life to terms like “cute” “adorable” and “SO, so cute!” I sound like jessica simpson and it’s re-god-damn-diculous, but in this case, it applies. Lisa Loeb is a bunny rabbit wearing a halloween costume of a baby kitten on a fluffy cloud of marshmallows and dreams. She is a little six year old girl in her mom’s pumps standing on her dad’s feet to ballroom dance in the kitchen. She is a pink cheeked baby yawning on her first christmas eve. SHE IS THE CUTEST THING ON EARTH.

And, you know, I’m comfortable with her prioritizing her personal life ahead of her career. If she wanted to go underground and join the Taliban, Id support her, because the one overwhelming sense you get from this show is that you just want her to be happy. If you find your happiness in a man, so be it. If you find it playing “Stay (I Miss You)” for the eleventy billionth time at the canal room, so be it. If you want to move to staten island with a dozen cats, so be it. I JUST WANT YOU TO BE HAPPY, LISA.

Preconceived notions be damned, you should watch this show. Unless you hate cuteness or something because you’re a fucking communist.

Example Two: Tori Spelling

Donna Martin graduates! Donna Martin graduates!

Before yesterday, I didn’t care if Tori Spelling lived or died. Yes, were she to pass away from malnutrition or excessivingestionnjestion I would feel sad for the casting agents at the Lifetime movie network (“What do you mean, we can’t get mariska hargitay? OR the mom from Everyone Loves Raymond? Not even Raven Simone?? Alright, give it to Tori. AGAIN”) but I don’t think she’s ever contributed anything worthwhile to my existence. She jockiedcompetitivelytetively for title of The Weakest Link on 90210 (which is saying something when you’re up agains Ahn-drea. She could have gone to Yale, you know. She got in. Instead she stayed with the gang on a scholarship and got knocked up by a bartender. What kind of a message are we sending the kids about public schools?).

Until now. I tifauxed her show for the same reason I grabbed Lisa Loeb’s– to laugh at it. So I could sit in my overpriced shoebox apartment where I pat myself on the back for having health insurance and filing my bills in chronological order, and know that, somewhere, there are million dollar celebrities who would, frankly, be better off as me. But lo, I was wrong. Again. Tori Spelling is better than me. In fact, I might go so far as to say she is AWESOME.

This show had me within three lines. Tori plays herself and actors play everyone else in her life, including Loni Anderson as her cracked-out mom with an eBay addiction. A ton of the jokes are taken from Tori-based rumors and episodes in her life, and they also include hilarious flashbacks to weird events in her childhood that have caused her to grow into the plucky, large boobed wonder that she is today. The dialogue moves quickly–like, Gilmore Girls quickly– and if you gealphabetizehebetize your US Weeklys by cover photo subject, you’ll miss fun one-liners like when they refer to the gaffer on her new movie as a fluffer. Which is only funny if your dirty mind knows what a fluffer used to be employed for, pre-Viagra. Enjoy googling that one, dad!

I can’t hate this show. I wanted to so badly that even a little bit of suckiness would have made me stand on my (ikea) coffee table and scream “I TOLD YOU SO!” to no one other than the mouse colony behind my living room wall, but its insurmountable awesomeness has wooed me. I love you, Tori. As should we all… as should we all.