ABC's newest reality show, 'Splash,' premieres

I have a confession to make: Sometimes, in a moment of weakness, I do watch reality TV shows. I'm not exactly proud of that fact, but I'm not going to hide it, either. Here I am, telling the world that yes, I did watch ABC's newest reality show, Splash, and I didn't hate it. Judge me if you want. I can take it.

Here's the thing: After seeing the seemingly endless promos for Splash ("Stars...Will...Fall"), I was all set to hate it. I flipped it on, fully prepared for a long evening of hate-watching TV (Splash, then Smash). The thing is, I didn't really hate Splash, even though I probably should. Did anyone else see it? Are you brave enough to admit it here? Okay fine, lurk if you want, that's cool, but let me share my initial thoughts so I can clear this from my already overly cluttered noggin.

Splash features 10 celebrities (term used very loosely, mind you) competing to see who can do the best dives. Each week, the celebs compete for two esteemed judges (both from the world of diving) and they're given half of their total score from them. The studio audience then weighs in. The average of the two scores is their final number. The two lowest scoring contestants then have a (get ready for it) "dive off." I cannot believe I just wrote that, but it did happen.

Why didn't I totally hate Splash? It has all the hallmarks of classically awful reality TV competitions: D-list stars we don't remember or care much about, a beauty queen from Alabama ("Diving is hard, y'all!"), one current NFL player and one aging but awesome athlete. By the way, that aging pro athlete is none other than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He's 65 years old, and he's diving from the platforms. Now, if that isn't inspirational, I don't know what is, right?

Maybe it's my lifelong affection for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar that made me like this show, or maybe it was the 400-pound Louie Anderson's plight to dive that pulled my heartstrings a bit. I mean come on, the poor dude couldn't even get out of the pool when they first started training.

My biggest criticism, and it's pretty massive, is that there really isn't enough actual diving going on in Splash. The set up takes forever, the interviews are too long and the build up is ridiculously overdone. I'm also irritated that host Joey Lawrence did not utter the phrase "Whoa!" once during entire hour-long show. Blossom fans, you feel me?

Maybe things will get better once the never ending introductions of the celebrities ends. I hope so, because if you're going to give me a reality show about diving, let's see them do more jumping, okay? The dives we did see were the best part of the show. If it was just dive after dive after dive, with no melodrama, I'd be thrilled.

Photo courtesy of ABC.com