Fear Factor
NBC
Mondays 8 p.m. / 7 p.m. Central

Nobody is honest on television. Newscasters lie to us, sitcoms are full of the same tired clichés we were bored with 20 years ago and we all know that video of the kid smacking his dad in the nuts with the wiffleball bat was staged. Television gives us our entertainment served with a wink, a sweeps-inspired lesbian kiss here, a Big Important Character death there. Nothing is sincere, and either you have stilted plotlines where everyone learns a lesson and gets hugs, or you have a reality program where everyone's preening and primping for the camera while passing out head shots to the gaffers.

No one really gives us what we want. They dance around it, they bat it to-and-fro, and in the end, they send us on our way, unfulfilled, hoping you'll forgot what they'd promised you in the promos.

Except for "Fear Factor," which is having its grand championship tonight, with the winners of every previous program gathering to contend for $100,000. It is the one program that simply is what is says it is and never fails to give you something you haven't seen before. It is the one show that I never miss, to the point that I plan my week around it.

I know. You're laughing. Even in the maligned world of reality television, Fear Factor is considered the dregs, the nadir, As Bad As It Gets. But that's just being snotty. I'm telling you ... you have to see this shit to believe it.

Sociological masterpiece

At its best, "Fear Factor" is a fascinating study of aberrant sociological behavior; at its worst, it simply shows surgically enhanced women eating maggoty cheese. But, hey. That's fine too.

"Fear Factor" has a very simple premise. Three men and three amply chested women (the ladies always have huge breasts; the flat-chested dames are more than welcome on Oxygen, but there is no place for them here), compete in three separate stunts, theoretically designed to display their ability to overcome basic human anxieties.

One typically involves heights, or water. A contestant will have to escape from a submerged coffin, for example, or walk a tightrope between two tall buildings. Another stunt usually involves something just creepy, like being covered in bees or crawling through sewage in total darkness. These are breezy and just ominous enough to give you a brief shiver on the couch; you're either the type of person who says "Oh, that's easy, I could do that!" or you think, "Man, I'd be crying the second they strapped the bungee cord to my back."

But the stunt that makes "Fear Factor" great, traditionally the second of the three stunts, is what the Food Network would be like if William S. Burroughs were in charge. Essentially, the competitors have to eat nasty, disgusting, hideous things. You wouldn't believe what "Fear Factor" makes you eat. Let's go through the highlights.

The highlights

Bull penis. Coagulated blood. One-hundred-year-old eggnog. Horse rectum. A cow snout. Live caterpillars. A smoothie of earthworms and cockroaches, liquefied in a blender, concocted to quench any thirst. The contestant must sit there, in front of the Western world in primetime and eat and swallow.

What's genius about this aspect of the competition is that it's not really a competition at all. You simply have to swallow without vomiting. If you can do that, you advance. That might sound easy, but hey, you've never tried to suck down cod sperm while your opponents are making barf noises.

It's one thing to eat something so wretched. It is another to do it when a camera's on you. But it's something else altogether to expect — no, to know — that millions will tune in to watch it. "Fear Factor" has been on the air for a few years now; clearly people are watching. It is old hat to point out that most reality television personalities will do anything to get on television.

"Fear Factor" forces us to examine what it's worth to be on television, and, more importantly, it forces the contestants to examine it. You want to be on TV? Fine. Eat a steer's cock. Bob for cow eyes in a vat of sheep's blood. Carry a dead rat in your mouth. Now how bad do you want to be on TV? Is this worth it to you?

And the best part is these people, these lost souls, they want it bad, and they'll do it... sure, why not? "Fear Factor" turns the whole notion of reality television on its head while still spasming orgasmically amongst the roots of the genre. Of course, the show would never take itself seriously enough to pretend to care about these issues — "Fear Factor" has no time for such psychobabble. It's time to eat up, people.

Meet the master

Joe Rogan, who hosts the show, is a frat-boy prankster who pulled off the impressive trick of being completely unmemorable while surrounded by Phil Hartman, Dave Foley and Andy Dick on "News Radio." Rogan is a host cut from the Richard Dawson cloth, a sleazy and lecherous emcee who never once forgets he's hosting a show where people eat horse rectum.

You couldn't take Joe Rogan seriously if he were hosting a breast cancer telethon; he's the type of guy you just know, the second the cameras are off, is slipping the number of his hotel room into the nearest packed sports bra. Not a smirking irony winker, Rogan knows the score. You know he wouldn't get all pompous actor on you when you told him he was born to host this show, which he was. He's aware everyone on the show is simply desperate for television time and is smart enough to know it's best just to let them do their thing, and cheer them on as they disintegrate any dignity they had left.

Tellingly, Rogan never takes part in any stunts, but he never openly mocks the contestants either. In fact, he's their biggest supporter. Hey, you're here already, and you're on TV, he seems to be saying: You might as well finish off that cow snout. If Joe Rogan were recapping the highlights of my life, he'd make sure they focused on my first masturbatory experience. Hell, he'd be my No. 1 fan. "Don't give up, Will! You can do it!"

Any loyal quiz show fan knows that the next couple of weeks are the Tournament of Champions on "Jeopardy," which serve to once and for all remind us that we are idiots. (One of the categories the other day was "Gnomes." Gnomes!) "Fear Factor" is no different. Last week, on the semifinals, they had to whittle six competitors down to three. How did they do it? They had a race.

Contestants were paired up. Viewers noticed with imminent dread that they were standing next to goats, with a table between them holding two empty glasses. With glee so obvious he didn't even try to disguise it, Rogan explained that the goal was to fill the glasses with milk. Each contestant had to milk the goats and transfer that milk to the glass. Oh, and they had to milk the goats with their mouths.

And so it was. For the right to advance to the next round, six human beings, real live human beings with families and loved ones and mortgages, took turns sucking on goat udders, swishing the milk around in their mouths and spitting it into a glass. The winner of each round then victoriously gulped down the milk, even the guy who warned Rogan beforehand that he was lactose intolerant.

Sadly, the censors had their way with this segment. For reasons I would pay good money to see explained, preferably in interoffice memo corporate speak, network brass made the camera cut away from the actual teat sucking. You just saw the contestants leaning toward the goat's rump, their head bobbing for a few seconds and then sprinting to the glass.

We were denied our money shot. It was just another example of how TV — when the cards are on the table — still isn't ready for "Fear Factor."

— Will Leitch (leitch@blacktable.com)