TVSquad

The Fox Reality Channel is one of the most addictive substances on the planet. You don't tune in with any expectation of entertainment value or enlightening philosophical knowledge that will help you understand the universe and all of its foilbles.

It's the broadcast equivalent of a really bad cold sore, the kind you know deep down will only go away if you just leave it alone. But the longer you leave it be, the more you can hear it calling your name, begging you to touch it, asking you to fondle it, pleading with you to lick it like a drunken prom date.

Every time my remote fumbles past the FRC in search of something worth watching, it's hard not to stop in and see just how low they can sink to grab your attention. My mind always asks the same question when I dare to poke the reality show behemoth with a stick during its slumber: "Just how low can the network that created Cops, World's Wildest Police Chases, and When Animals Attack 2 go?" As it turns out, pretty damn low as evidenced by Smile...You're Under Arrest.

The show aims to be a Punk'd cross-bred with America's Most Wanted in that it hopes to do a little right by doing a little wrong. Actors and producers team up with a sheriff's office -- in this case, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office led by the infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- to trick wanted criminals into showing up at staged events, where they will be arrested by undercover officers.

The pranks are pretty unimaginative and dull. One episode features the cast of four staging a fake fashion show with the victims being used as amateur fashion models in their "Average Guy" line of clothing. The cast members take their characters completely over the top, particularly the hip hop, sideways-cap-sporting fashion designer who would get a "Tone it down" from Vanilla Ice. The overacting is more cringe-worthy than watching your dog being autopsied.

They take the dupes through the motions, getting him or her to say various embarrassing and ironic catchphrases that should have tipped them off that they were about to be busted. Then, just as they lower the boom, they have two uniformed deputies place them in handcuffs and haul them away, with cameras capturing their flushed facial expressions. So, even if you don't feel the shame of getting off on their misfortune, you have to sit through whole minutes of dreck just for five seconds of surprised humiliation, leaving your id frustrated and blue by the end of the show.

The sickest part of the show isn't the trickery they use to dupe the warrant dodgers into getting pinched. It's the way they justify such mind-blowingly bad television with the illusion of doing a good deed. Sandwiched between the pranks are footage of the actors and the sheriff talking about the good their show is accomplishing. They talk about how good their work makes them feel, helping the deputies do their job and get people who waste tax dollars by not showing up to court and causing harm to the general public off the streets.

It's a thin, weak and wussy way of protecting the show from public scrutiny and giving it carte blanche to turn law enforcement into their three-ring circus of suck.