While we never expected Celebrity Circus to be a magical panacea that would cure us from the premature onset of the summer television doldrums, it's fair to say that we here at Defamer HQ were all more than a little bit pumped to watch last night's premiere. After all, as proud Gen Xers, we have fond, kitsch-filled memories of watching Lynda Carter dodge knives and William "The Greatest American Hero" Katt rock the shit out of the Giant Wheel Of Death. So when perfect '80s-storm plundering Ben Silverman announced plans earlier this year that NBC would be airing the show, we marked and calendars and began dusting off our bean bags and hot air popcorn poppers in preparation for what we thought was going to be an awesome night of television. But much to our dismay, our dreams were shattered when we found out that Celebrity Circus wasn't a one-time event where everyone comes together to celebrate the spirit of, well, circusness. Rather, we were hoodwinked into watching yet another entry in the tiresome reality "competition" genre, filled with yet another panel of judges with distracting accents and/or speech impediments. What a drag.

That said, big ups (do the kids still say that?) to the 4442-year-old Stacey Dash, who looks like she hasn't aged a day since Clueless (that's more than we can say for Alicia Silverstone). Sure, our sister blog Jezebel thinks that her can-do spirit in the face of broken ribs had more to do with money than competitive desire, after watching her bungee trapeze routine, we prefer to think of her as having the heart of a champion (not to mention the body of goddess). If we didn't have such strong opposition to yet another show filled with judges with questionable qualifications —who was that lispy yet flexible French woman, anyway?— we would tune in again next week to see how she does. Speaking of judges, if you're looking to find judges to sit alongside American Anthem himself, at least have them be named Barnum and/or Bailey. And one day, when we find ourselves turned away from the pearly gates for the nefarious actions that we have committed in the name of blogs, we fully expect to see NBC shill-for-hire Joey Fatone working as a maître d' in the Seventh Circle Of Hell's karoake bar. Nevermore, quoth the elephant trainer, nevermore!

• Celebrity Circus [NBC]

Tags: ben silverman | celebrity circus | circuses | clips | disappointments | nbc | stacey dash | trapeze