The hook of The Simple Life is irresistible: Two wealthy, pampered young women go from upper-crust Los Angeles to an Arkansas farm to prove that they can survive without their cell phones and credit cards. As hotel heiress Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie (daughter of pop star Lionel) blithely move in with a farm family, the Ledings, the culture clash immediately becomes a train wreck; when asked to pluck chickens, Richie declares, "I'm not plucking anything but my eyebrows." They try to work a series of jobs (at a dairy farm, at a fast-food joint, at a livestock auction), but they possess not a jot of work ethic or any sense of the consequences of failure. Like the girls themselves, this 2003 reality show becomes both fascinating and repellent, comic and horrifying. It's like watching alien beings trying to masquerade as people. --Bret Fetzer