The Bad Girls' Club – Season Four

Very seldom does a show with such a stupid premise and such an unlikable cast end up so immensely entertaining. While MTV wastes viewers' time with true creeps and wastes of human life in the stereotype-confirming "Jersey Shore" (please do not watch this unbearable show), Oxygen has begun its fourth season of "The Bad Girls Club," a gem among reality shows. Not only is The Bad Girls Club entertaining, it's funny, edgy, and often so awkward that it rivals "The Office."

The premise of Bad Girls is simple. Taking the blue-print of The Real World, Oxygen fills a poor, unsuspecting house with seven self-proclaimed Bad Girls. What does being a Bad Girl mean? Well, for Oxygen, it's one of two things: either a Bad Girl is a narcissistic loudmouth who sleeps with many men, or she's a narcissistic loudmouth who likes to fight with other girls. After the girls are handpicked to be on the show, they must live together for a few weeks. They don't have to stay inside the house, nor are there any competitions or prizes. Oxygen, with obvious reluctance, will obligatorily state that these girls are there to learn how not to be so bad, but we know the real reason they're there: drama, and lots of it.

With every season, the girls begin to clash on the first day. They all hate each other and are not only loud about it, but excited to tell the others how they feel. Each girl assumes that every over girl should feel exactly as she does. Of course, they eventually bond when they go to clubs and fight with other groups of similar girls (the television cameras seem to invite attacks from women who have probably seen the show and are bitter that they didn't get on it themselves). Now, when I say "fight" I don't mean screaming matches, I mean no-holds-barred rumbles with flailing nails and whipping hair, and yes, punches to the face. That Oxygen probably has the most lenient policy for fist-fighting (most other shows have a one-strike-you're-out rule) is alone a good enough reason to watch this series, but there are so many more.

The thing is, when you get all these insufferable people together and watch them go for each other's throats, something strange happens: you begin to side with some of them, feel bad for them, even empathize with them. Suddenly, you're hooked. You're personally offended when someone throws a glass of ubiquitous alcohol in someone's face or someone wipes their ass with someone else's cute shoes. You're elated when your favorite house-guest draws another girl into such a frenzy that the show is forced to kick her off the air (it's happened in every season). And you're frustrated when the girls gang up on one cast member, sensing fear and weakness.

Each cast member has a distinct and big personality. The second season featured Tanisha, a fat, sassy, incredibly funny black girl that has never lost a debate in her life. Giving advice about how to win an argument in the house, she said, "Just keep saying 'what makes you so perfect?' over and over again until they back down." Last season, there was a set of two girls named Amber who, because they were kind in nature and extremely close with each other threatened the rest of the girls. And, subtly put, the other five girls declared war on them. Never has a season of television been so frustrating and, towards the end, so cathartic as well. This season, the main players on the show are Annie, a good girl with an obsession about cleanliness and counting calories (who has shown very little of a bad side) and Natalie, a huge-sunglasses-wearing party girl who says "I want to be roommates with Annie because I think I can control her." Who actually says that kind of thing?

But on The Bad Girls Club, people say things like that—and worse—all the time. Again, this isn’t Jersey Shore–unmitigated, greasy ignorance–this is conniving, evil, unbelievable narcissism, which, it turns out, is way more fun to watch. So, whether you want to see beautiful women acting like convicts, or beautiful women punching each other in the throats, or beautiful women spitting in each other’s drinks, or beautiful women socially dominating one another, or just beautiful women, check out The Bad Girls Club. Sure, it's a guilty pleasure, but when are the best reality shows not? The Bad Girls Club with dance with you, yell at you, smash a bottle over your head and seduce you all in the course of one episode, and afterwards, all you'll think about is what's going to happen next week.