Starting Over 3, 02-16-06 – Lonelinessby LauraBelle
Does anybody out there know exactly what NBC is doing? Does NBC know what NBC is doing? I was surprised last week to hear from many Starting Over fans who weren't getting the show, as I was still getting it. I did a little investigating, and found that it was being preempted in the areas that received the show on NBC, but those areas that get it on a syndicated station still got to see the show. This morning I sat down to watch my TIVOed episode from yesterday, only to find the episode where Kim first arrived at the house. Ooookay. I imagine NBC suddenly realized they were leaving half their fans out in the cold. But here's one for ya, NBC. What are you going to do with those of us that have seen the past week and those of us that haven't? Do you make us sit through a week of shows we already saw when the Olympics are over, or do you force the others into never seeing the week of shows that were already aired in some areas? Honestly, it's not like having the Olympics this winter was a big shock. They should have had this figured out. Then again, us Starting Over viewers are used to getting the shaft at NBC. I realized it gives me some much needed time to get caught up, yet still ...
Iyanla meets with Jill first thing in the morning and is informed she will be filing a demo later in the morning. She isn't very happy to have not been given much prep time, but ever the professional, she's up for it. Send your demo to NBC, Jill, they need someone like you.
Christie is having a lonely day. It's been a week since Justin moved out of her house. She tries to talk to her sister on the phone about it, and suddenly they're cut off, leaving Christie with nothing but a dial tone.
In Group, Iyanla tells the women to gather all their thoughts, and asks Christie what is at the center of her thoughts today. She says loneliness, and the rest of the Group and day is spent talking about being lonely. Now, how did that happen? Did they know Christie was going to say that, or did they build the discussion and the day around her thoughts?
Iyanla asks everyone to share one of their more lonely times in their life. Jodi talks about a family party on the Fourth of July. She was the only one that was there alone. Lisa talks about being lonely at a family gathering as well, realizing how lonely Christmas has been since she has distanced herself from her family. Christie talks about a time she was nine or ten and was all alone when it was getting dark outside. She went for a walk by herself, and ended up at a friend's house, feeling much more warmth there than she apparently ever felt at her own home. Kim can relate to that, saying she felt very lonely after the birth of her son. She would be out on the porch in the early morning hours by herself crying.
Once you start Kim, you can't stop her. Bottling up all those feeling for so many years, they're beginning to tumble out. When Iyanla asks everyone to put themselves back in that lonely place, Kim starts crying, and Iyanla asks what that lonely place inside her would say if it could talk. Kim believes it would say, "Show me you love me." Iyanla tells her she should respond back, "I am enough," and then instructs all the ladies to do the same.
So Christie was already very lonely, went to Group and had to call up more lonely feelings, and now after Group she finds a video camera left by Rhonda telling her to go out to breakfast alone and record her lonely thoughts.
Iyanla moves on to a one-on-one with Lisa, and asks her to write down all the things she feels she is hiding on labels, and she writes down things like shame, embarrassment, fear and anger. The labels are then placed on plastic buckets holding "sludge". There is a rope attached to each bucket on a pulley, and Lisa instructed to pull down on the ropes to keep the buckets from falling down and making a mess. The things that Lisa wants – intimacy, love, joy, and clarity – are written on a plate just out of her reach. Lisa keeps holding on to the things she's hiding, so as not to make a mess, but she can't quite reach what she wants. Suddenly, she drops the buckets, creates a huge mess, and breaks down in tears. Lisa gets what she wants, and now that she has it, she has to clean up the mess. Literally. She gets out the hose and cleans off the patio.
Jill makes some quick notes on things she might want to talk about on her demo, and leaves for the recording studio with Kelly for support. The engineer, Derek Lipman, gives her some copy of commercials he thought it would be good for her to read. He says all potential employers will need or want, is just sixty seconds of tape to listen to. Jill admits to a little rustiness, as she flubs some lines, but gets her groove back pretty quickly.
Christie goes to the cafe for breakfast, and sets up her video camera, saying into it how uncomfortable she is. Here's the thing, I get the embarrassment; I do. But, if you're in a cafe talking into a video camera, and you have a whole film crew around you filming you on top of that, don't you think people would realize it's not something you normally do, talk to yourself in cameras? They have to realize Christie is on some type of reality show.
While Christie is gone, Rhonda gathers her housemates, and asks them to help her with an assignment. Christie is so bugged out on being lonely that Rhonda wants the others to completely ignore her the rest of the day. I'm feeling a little sorry for her now. Rhonda is working on Christie's addiction to love, and she wants to know what it's like to be lonely despite having many people around you. I think she does know that feeling Rhonda.
Christie arrives home, not wanting to wait to tell her housemates about her lonely lunch, and no one will pay attention to her. On top of it, there's a basket of ingredients in the kitchen, and they are all supposed to make cookies together. Just Christie's luck, she is feeling lonely, has to eat lunch alone and film her feelings about it, no one will talk to her, and now she has to make cookies that she isn't supposed to eat on top of it all. Next thing you know she'll hear NBC is preempting her favorite show.
Rhonda meets up with Christie after the cookie baking, and Christie admits she is quite upset, but also admits that she figured it was an assignment. Regardless, it still upset her a great deal. Rhonda tells her when she is no longer afraid of being lonely, it won't continue to run her life.
Lisa bites the bullet and calls her sister, Susan, who she hasn't talked with in a few years. Last week she had called her sister, Ida, under the same conditions. Susan starts crying hearing Lisa's voice, and says it's okay. Their parents raised them to hide their feelings when something was wrong.
The housemates take their cookies that they baked this afternoon to a group of people that understand loneliness. They take the cookies to a group of Alzheimer sufferers at a retirement home. Jodi is particularly touched having watched her grandfather die from Alzheimer's. Everyone gets the assignment here – when you think you're lonely, there are always others that are more so. And the only when to cure that is for lonely people to help out each other.
Maybe we shouldn't let the NBC execs be lonely today. Maybe we should flood them with emails to ask about our favorite show.
You can email me at LauraBelle@realityshack.com
For commentary on others shows, see LauraBelle's Blog
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