Of course, the quality of "The Surreal Life" comes from great casting as much as skilled editing. The celebrities on the show aren't just the exes of ex-stars, they're actual icons of '80s pop culture. Watching MC Hammer, Emmanuel Lewis and Vince Neil shop for toilet paper is, not surprisingly, a little bit more of a spectacle than seeing Bruce Jenner hang his tighty-whities out to dry. "The Surreal Life" stars are also far more likable and down-to-earth; from Hammer's interactions with strangers at the Fatburger to former Playmate Brande Roderick's honesty about her love life, it's clear this group has regular contact with ordinary people. Everyone in the group is fairly outspoken without stepping on each other's toes, and they all seem interested in having a good time.

But then there's Corey Feldman. To be fair, the show should really be called "Corey Feldman's Surreal Life," since the most memorable moments revolve around his apparent difficulty in making it through each day without having an emotional breakdown. Even though the others seem to try hard not to rip into Feldman, Carteris observes that "Corey lives in trauma, and that's where he probably is functioning most of the time." Hammer remarks, "There's always some type of drama or stress." Neil adds that Feldman "could find drama in what he was eating that day." And then Feldman chimes in with a melodramatic comment like, "Everything is just kind of coming at me from all sides, and I wish that I could have other people feel it, you know, so that they could be on the same page with me."

In this group, though, no one is on Feldman's page, which is lucky for them. He appears to be in pain almost constantly. He overreacts at the slightest criticism from Manthey, he blows up and swears at Hammer, and he clashes with Carteris from beginning to end. One night when they're all camping, Feldman tries to express the unbearable pain of being a child star: His parents blew all his earnings, they didn't give him what he needed emotionally, etc. It does sound pretty sad, but Hammer won't have any of it: "A celebrity should never talk about [how] they got a tough life. It is so wimpy to complain!" Everyone laughs and claps and Feldman stares at his hands. Of course, fellow former child star Lewis isn't helping Feldman's case much by being 4 feet tall and a good sport about everything, from being buried in the sand from the neck down to playing softball with women twice his size.

But even when Feldman makes a big effort to be positive, everything still falls apart. On the day before his wedding (which is also the show's finale), Feldman gathers the group and attempts to rally them, saying, "I really am excited that you're all gonna share the wedding with me tomorrow, and everybody's happy ... I'm sorry ..." Suddenly, he breaks down crying, and everyone looks startled except Vince Neil, who appears to be stifling a laugh. Finally, Roderick asks, "Do you need help packing?"

The next day at the wedding, the bride's mother creepily tells the camera, "When Susannah was a little girl, she watched a movie, 'Stand by Me,' that Corey was in. And later on that day, we found a note that she wrote that said that she was in love with Corey Feldman and she wanted to marry him. Destiny has a way of finding its way to you!" It has an especially easy time finding you when your dream is to marry one of the Coreys.

Still, by the end of "The Surreal Life," thanks to great editing, the cast feels familiar and likable, and it's almost sad to see them go. In contrast, every dismissal from the set of "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!" is purely a relief. Watching that show, night after night, you eventually start to feel as if you're suffering through the mud and the dull stories right along with the pseudo-stars, which can't be the best way to win good ratings.

As long as those bloated demi-celebrity egos still explode spectacularly outside the carefully calibrated environments they're accustomed to, reality TV scientists should ditch the mud and the mealworms and stick to short, fun, heavily edited formats. After 15 hours in the driving rain, we might even get tired of the Osbournes.

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