The Surreal Life is a reality show on VH1. This is season five with the house having a circus theme. New episodes air on Sundays with repeated shows airing on Fridays. This particular episode aired on Sunday July 17th with a repeat showing being broadcast on Friday, July 29th at 9 pm.

The Surreal Life typically has a mixed cast with actors from television shows from years ago, artists that have not been around for awhile, reality tv stars from seasons past and players from various sports entities. I only watched one season fully with a few episodes from other seasons.

The cast this season consists of Omorosa (of Apprentice fame), Jose Canseco (author of juiced), Bronson Pinchot (Balki in Perfect Strangers, also starred in Beverly Hills Cop), Janice Dickinson - touted as the first supermodel - she is one of the judges on America's Next Top Model - a show that Tyra Banks hosts. The rest of the cast includes Sandi Denton (Pepa of Salt N Pepa), Carey Hart (motorcross)and Caprice (UK model).

I am watching because I have been a long time fan of Jose Canseco and interested in seeing Omorosa. The episode starts out with a book signing at The Surreal Life house for Juiced. Many of the people coming in are rude to Jose Conseco and he just goes with the flow. He really handled the situation well and it surprised the rest of the cast.

Later The Surreal Life cast learns they will be bowling for charity, although the other team is a mystery until they get to the bowling alley. It was in Orange County, California against the Sunshine Strikers. This was officiated by a woman from an ARC office in the same area. The money awarded to the winning team, which was The Sunshine Strikers was the points for both teams added together, so it was about $1400.

They had to choose a member of The Surreal Life to be the captain of the other team. This was done prior to knowing the identity of the other team. No one would do this so Omorosa volunteered. This was a good match because Omorosa had mentioned later during the episode that she has several members in her family that have developmental disabilities. Omorosa was wonderful with the developmentally disabled adults. She cheered them on and got pointers from them. The cast of The Surreal Life was surprised and happy to see how comfortable Omorosa was with the other team.

The shocking character flaws were found in Janice Dickinson. This woman was loud and abusive to The Sunshine Strikers. Twice she referred to them as "retards". The rest of the cast was not pleased with her behavior and I was glad to see them show their disapproval. At one point when one of The Sunshine Strikers was bowling Janice called out "Hey Rainman". The others gave her a look of disgust.

I just learned that Janice Dickinson will not be returning as a judge for the fifth season of America's Next Top Model. But it does seem that she left to pursue other projects. It turns out that she is known for being offensive. I saw from scenes of future shows that Omorosa gets into a debate with Janice over her parenting skills. To think this woman has children and behaved in such a manner is appalling. She freaked out on the previous episode because Bronson Pinchot touched her and then she turns around and makes rude and insensitive remarks about the developmentally disabled in front of cameras.

At first when I saw The Sunshine Strikers I worried what the cast of The Surreal Life would do to them, but luckily all but one conducted themselves in an adult manner and were able to bowl against them in a friendly, competitive nature.

I would have liked to have seen a website or some information on Special Olympics after the episode aired to give more exposure to those with developmental disabilities. I have searched all over trying to find out more about those who were bowling as The Sunshine Strikers

This episode will air again on Friday, July 29th at 9 pm, VH1.



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