The Fall of The Osbournes
MTV
Tuesdays 10:30 p.m. / 9:30 p.m. Central

"It's 10:30 and 'The Osbournes' are on!" At my house those words once rang like some long-awaited dinner bell, spurring two otherwise level-headed adults to sprint for a good spot in front of the TV before missing even a second of the opening credits.

One recent Tuesday, though, I realized that nobody even bothers to make the announcement anymore. Perhaps more striking is the fact that until that moment, we hadn't even noticed that we had stopped caring, or realized that Tuesday night had silently faded back into the rest of week.

It's not unusual for a television show, especially a sitcom, to peak and then head for the toilet. That's just part of the natural, TV show lifecycle. What's notable about "The Osbournes" — and indeed, about reality TV as a genre — is how quickly it fell and how hard it crashed. To put it in important, technical-sounding terms, reality TV seems to have a low point of diminishing returns. That is, the shows tend to peter out a lot sooner than a well-written series. When a formerly decent sitcom starts to suck, it gradually becomes increasingly boring until its network finally, mericifully cancels it. Reality shows, which are rarely good in the first place, tend to get much, much worse much, much more rapidly. "The Osbournes" started out better than most reality TV, but its sudden and speedy demise affirms that even the best of its ilk have serious stamina problems.

It's hard to pinpoint the exact moment the once-loveable band of British foul-mouths morphed from a fresh novelty item to MTV's latest annoyance. Perhaps it came around the time that Kelly Osbourne hijacked the show to use as a promotional vehicle for her fledgling singing career (a charitable description of her work, indeed). Maybe it was when we endured watching some meathead-personal trainer cringingly try to wake the spoiled and lazy Jack for the pre-dawn taping of his cameo on "Dawson's Creek." Or was it simply that the second season lacked enough footage of addled Ozzy mumbling his unique, Simpsons-cum-Spinal Tap brand of one-liners? Maybe we all just needed a good laugh after Sept. 11 and the debut of "The Osbournes," strangely enough, slaked our collective cultural thirst for a little good, clean escapist fun.

Whatever the reasons, the show didn't just hit a wall in its second season; it crashed into a brick one. The only buzz generated by the Osbournes these days stems from the strangely aggressive and histrionic exploits of family members reported on Page Six and/or syndicated tabloid TV.

To wit: Sharon hauled talent agent Renee Tab onto the show "Celebrity Justice," where she accused Tab of stealing a $15,000 diamond necklace. Sharon further charged that Tab punched her in the face when she accused her of the crime. Kelly, meanwhile, got some press of her own by punching an "image consultant" who told her to dress more like Christina Aguilera. This consultant turned out to be part of a prank set up by Justin Timberlake and Ashton Kutcher on a recent episode of MTV's newest adolescent-humored reality show, "Punk'd," which currently enjoys "The Osbournes'" former timeslot.

Despite bumping "The Osbournes" off its normal schedule in February and having "Punk'd" take pot shots at one of its stars, MTV says it's bringing "The Osbournes" back for a third season, starting June 10 in the same Tuesday, 10:30 timeslot. Getting excited about yet another season of "The Osbournes" is proving to be nearly impossible.

Ironically enough, the most real reality TV of all — the real-time televised war in Iraq — took a heavy toll on the flurry of crap-TV kicked off during last fall's lineup announcements. Ratings for the category have fallen sharply and the shows themselves, exhausted as they are of neat gags and nail-biter situations, grow more and more labored and hackneyed. See, for example, NBC's "America's Most Talented Kid" and Fox's new Monica Lewinsky-hosted series, "Mr. Personality: Is Love Skin Deep?"

If reality TV continues on its road to self-destruction, we all may be watching good, old-fashioned scripted, network shows by this time next year. Shows in which actors play characters and prizes are not won! Could the next "Seinfeld" could already be in the works?

— Ryan Underwood (r-underwood@attbi.com)