Only the second night in Costa Rica for those of us at home, and already I feel as though there may be a few tiny neurons of brilliance in the creepy, amoral slosh that is Spencer Pratt’s brain. All Tuesday he had the entertainment media fielding bulletins and rumors: Spencer and Heidi had quit! Holly Montag and Daniel Baldwin were going in to replace them! Then: No! They’ve decided to stay! Stay and make us hate them, for that is Spencer’s “strategy” to win I’m A Celebrity: he’ll win money for charity by being evil while praying like a devout Christian. If he can keep this up, Spencer will single-handedly raise this listless reality game-show to legendary-crap status.

By the end of tonight’s episode, H&S had yelled, “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here!” for something like the tenth time, and we saw them climb into a car bellowing to return “to the Hills!” They effectively highjacked the entire hour from the rest of a barely-celeb celebrities. Who cared about the vote to save one of the women from this week’s eviction? (For the record, it was Patti Blagojevich, who didn’t seem to care much, either.)

The only vaguely entertaining moments occurred when Spencer expressed a desire to be baptized. He was impressed by the conversion experience of Stephen Baldwin, who described himself as a “non-denominational, born-again… charismatic Christian.” Sayeth Spencer in awe: “That is so me in two years!” 

Baldwin performed a jungle baptism while Janice Dickinson said, “You’re hurting the religion… I didn’t come here to be on Holy Rollers, Get Me Out Of Here!” And once again, I say unto you, when Janice Dickinson is the voice of reason, you know your TV show is in trouble.

The hour ended with some of the celebs expressing relief that H&S were gone. This “live” portion of the broadcast also consisted of them gawping blankly and yelling, “Are the cameras still on?” “Is that it?” 

If you think Heidi and Spencer won’t return, I have a white, buttock-less harness signed “Bruno” to sell you.

Did you watch I’m a Celebrity? If so, do you feel like washing yourself in a nondenominational body of water? Or are you enjoying this cut-rate put-on?

The weirdest aspect of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! is that the worst thing about the show isn’t the celebrities, it’s everything surrounding them: the hosts, the competitions, the lack of imagination. The celebs, they’ve got imagination to burn. Spencer Pratt was his usual repulsive self, but it was pretty clever of him to call NBC entertainment president Ben Silverman to complain about the living conditions he was enduring in Costa Rica. Sanjaya is so imaginative, he was content to stare at a fire and marvel at “the whole concept of how it works.” Stephen Baldwin had the verbal dexterity to refer to a bit of tripe he ate as emitting “a little fart of disgustingness.” And Heidi Montag — ‘scuse me, Mrs. Heidi Pratt, as she prefers to be known now — had the imagination to apologize for her husband’s egomaniacal, pathetically lame reality-show ranting by saying, “My husband is a very new Christian,” and therefore deserves to be forgiven.

Best of all, Janice Dickinson told Patti Blagojevich, “You need to set the record straight” about what a good guy her disgraced-governor-husband Rod is, and Spencer avowed that he would have voted for Blago for President.

If the rest of the show was as nuttily deluded as all of the above, it’d be worth watching Monday through Thursday… almost. But the dreadful co-hosts, Damien Fahey and Myleene Klass, repeated much of what the celebrities had already said and then told us what to think about them. And the reward competitions — eating disgusting things; having bugs crawl over the contestants — were the stuff of 1,000 old reality shows.

I’ll stick around a few days more to see Heidi and Spencer traduce Christianity simply by offering prayers from their mealy mouths and maybe get a peek at that bullet-ant bite Stephen Baldwin suffered (did I hear that right? a bullet-ant? where are the shotgun-tarantulas?). But I have a feeling my curiosity about these celebs is doing to be used up as quickly as Heidi’s hair “product.”

How about you? Did you watch? Would you watch again?

Those of you who’ve started watching Jon & Kate Plus 8 only since the scandals erupted probably don’t understand the kind of disappointment we longtime fans are experiencing. Once upon a time, we tuned in to see how Jon and Kate bounced off each other, and for the way their differing parenting styles (his: laid-back; hers: drill-sergeant strict) collided, with often amusing, chaotic, and, yes, affectionate results.

But this week’s double-shot of two new episodes kept the couple apart, doubtless by choice. In the first episode, Jon snow-boarded in Park City, Utah, while Kate stayed home in Pennsylvania with the kids… on her birthday! That sort of thing never would have happened if there wasn’t trouble in marital/parenting paradise. The producers clearly tried to make Jon look like a good guy by having him do some volunteer work with local Utah disabled children on the ski slopes, but Jon gave away his true feelings by saying he loved being “totally alone” and away from “reality and TV world.” Kate, meanwhile, said Jon’s absence was “a little depressing… it’s kind of sad.” The show arranged for her to go to the set of the Food Network’s Ace of Cakes bakery, where she and the kids made sweets including a birthday cake for Kate, but the whole thing was indeed pretty glum. The half-hour even ended with Jon and Kate on their home sofa, reunited — but at far ends of the furniture, not touching, giving each other wary glances. Bummer.

In the second episode, the separate activities continued. Kate took Mady to San Diego for a spa vacation while Jon stayed home and took care of the other seven. There was some drama here: little Alexis fell while outdoors and bit through her lip — blood, tears, a doctor visit. One of the boys was reduced to talking to the cameraman during a walk in the woods: “I smell poop. Do you smell poop?” He wasn’t referring to the present state of Jon & Kate Plus 8. At least I don’t think he was.

Did you watch? Do you agree the life is draining out of the show a bit? Or, in the words of Kate, was your love-cup filled?