Everyone's jostling for a place at the pinnacle of television entertainment these days, but few deserve it
It's so crowded at the top these days. Once, only rare individuals such as Ed Hillary got to stand on the peak of achievement.
In hyper-elevated telly land, all and sundry - chefs, car critics, skinny girls, even whole towns - are elbowing their way up there.
Everywhere you look, there are shows claiming to be the apex in one way or another. Sunday's Top Town final was as impossible to ignore as all those chainsaws and lawnmowers cutting through the gorgeous autumn weather.
Host Marc Ellis bellowed his way through as if he, too, were powered by a two-stroke motor.
Co-host Mikey Havoc's roaring was less internal combustion engine and more mastodon bogged down in the primeval swamp.
And why not? After all, this resurrection of a dippy game show is all about regression, with its "Vomitron", a concept straight from a uni capping week and its big dumb games on equipment that looks like kids' water-toys on steroids.
No surprise then, that Taupo won, given this is a town which counts among its main attractions a golf hole set in the middle of the lake.
But it was, at least, culturally reassuring to see that you can put a bunch of Kiwis in a big, brash game show but you can't make 'em hype: "What were you before you came to Top Town?" one contestant was asked. "Not much really ... bit of a bum."
Such reticence didn't stop the presenters' mindless ranting and revving: "Taupo personalities have won over a nation!" Really? How much personality can you convey in Lycra, helmet and at the bottom of a pool?
There were two-stroke motor antics of a more literal kind in the weekend's Top Gear special.
The big question here was not so much whether Jeremy Clarkson and co's putt-putt bikes would get their riders the 1600km from south to north Vietnam, but whether their laddish shtick would last the distance.
It was lucky the country provided many a scenic distraction because it all felt a bit too try-hard at times, especially all that wanton destruction of those bad taste - but beautifully made - presents.
However, the bikes' fantastic conversions into amphibious craft at Halong Bay was a stroke of genius. But you can't help feeling sorry for places that become the bewildered backdrop for that peculiar bit of Western civilisation known as lad culture.
Swapping from testosterone to the estrogen and hairspray zone that is New Zealand's Next Top Model, it's good to see our girls putting their own Kiwi spin on the most vacuous of reality shows.
Sure, the lovelies have names that sound like Fleetwood Mac songs or some kind of curtain fabric, they try their best to squeal and scream in the best Tyra Banks tradition, but when they open their mouths, they just don't have the same swagger as their American counterparts.
"Comfy," was how one described her catwalk outfit, to the horror of the fashion mavens.
"I would be pretty upset if I get sent home ... after one brainless comment," she noted later. Fair enough. She may "wanna be on top" but as brainless comments go, it was nowhere near the big league of Miss Universe and Guantanamo Bay.
And the show is definitely more comfy than cerebral. One of the candidates ponders her new look: "Mediterranean - is that near South America?"
The judges sigh and shake their heads. The girls have their moments but "they are incredibly wrong moments", noted the pained "Miss J" equivalent, Colin Mathura-Jeffree.
He should keep his coiffure on, it's those incredibly wrong moments that puts this show on top.
