Final thoughts on WWRLD (with gifs!)

I've commented on Ryan Lochte's E! reality show What Would Ryan Lochte Do? a couple times previously, both negatively and postively, and since the show finished up last week, I figured I would give some final thoughts on it.

What has Ryan Lochte done?

So a couple of months ago, E! announced that Ryan Lochte was getting his own six-episode reality show called What Would Ryan Lochte Do and I actually defended it on my blog, saying it would be a good way to get people interested in swimming again before Worlds this summer.  However, E! finally released a trailer that was more than just 30 second flashes of Ryan saying "Jeah!" over and over again, and I'm going to have to go ahead and take back my previous statement.  This show looks like it's going to be the same sort of ridiculous train wreck that every other E! reality show is.

The majority of the clips in the four and a half minute "super trailer" focused not on Ryan's training or meets or really anything even remotely related to swimming, but on him trying to find "the one."  There were a couple of clips of him blowing off practice to go to a bar, clips of him trying to pick up girls at the bar, clips of him talking to his "assistant" about finding the one, clips of him talking to his mom and sister about picking up girls at the bar.  Ryan's explanation of how to properly say "jeah" was longer than any of the clips of him in the pool.

Sure, the clips of him with his family were cute.  Sure, the ridiculous faces he made when he was trying to think of what the "Lochte Edge" was were hilarious.  But Ryan said he's doing this show to try to raise the profile of swimming, and it doesn't seem like that's the angle the show wanted to take.  I'm sure E! didn't want to just air six episodes worth of Ryan swimming laps at practice, and I knew that was never going to happen.  It just would have been nice to have seen more swimming in the preview of a show about a swimmer.

Of course, the unthinkable could happen and the show could actually be better than it seems from this trailer.  There could be more swimming and less "looking for the one" but honestly, this is E! so that's never going to happen.  This isn't NBC trying to hype up the Olympics.  This is a channel whose showcase show is about Kim Kardashian, so I'm not really expecting it to focus as much on the sport.  That's not to say I'm not going to watch it, because I will be so there for every episode.  But I'll probably end up watching every episode with a sad longing for something much more pool-related.

Across the Internet: Ryan Lochte, Catching Fire, and The Winds of Winter

The past couple of days have brought some exciting things in the world of the internet, so I'm going to talk about them, because that's the point of me having a blog!

The long saga of Ryan Lochte getting a reality show has finally come to fruition- E! announced on Tuesday at the TCAs that they will be airing a six-episode reality show starting in April titled What Would Ryan Lochte Do?.  I've heard a lot of people making negative comments about the show, saying it's going to be awful and it's going to be a complete failure and paint Ryan in a bad light.  However, I'm of the opposite frame of mind.  

First of all, when has reality television ever painted someone in a good light?  Reality TV is about vaguely scripted drama and generally always makes people think the subjects are idiots.  You don't watch reality television for hard hitting stuff, you watch it because it's hilariously ridiculous and entertaining.  And if Ryan Lochte is trying to pick up girls in front of a camera, I'm pretty sure it will be both ridiculous and entertaining.

It's also going to be a huge promotional boost for the sport of swimming itself- with World Championships in Barcelona this summer, what better way to get people excited for it than a reality show on national television airing a couple months before the championships themselves? People love watching swimming during the Olympics, it would be great if the general public would show the same enthusiasm for the sport during another event.  I'll watch Worlds regardless, but if the show can bring in more fans to the sport, I'm not going to complain.