...some say that it might have gone too far already with some of the shows, but believe me folks, you ain't seen nothing yet.

There are things out there like Survivor, American Idol, The Amazing Race. Get ready for The Big Donor Show. As much as you'd like to think that it's for someone who wants to find an heir to give away all their money too, you'd be sadly mistaken.

It's a Dutch television show by the same people that are behind the original Big Brother show (in the U.K.) and they will be giving away a kidney.

A terminally ill woman named Lisa will choose from 3 patients who are in need of a kidney with the help of the audience who will text in who they think deserves the kidney of this woman. How sick is that? And by sick I don't mean some colloquialism that means it's cool or anything like that. I think it's disgusting. While it's noble that this woman wants to make sure her kidney is going to someone who needs it, it's rather... disgusting to use this method to do it.

Is it a way of spurring people on to donate organs? Is it a way of increasing awareness to the necessity of organ donation? I'm sure that it's going to accomplish those things, but there are other ways to do that than appearing on a reality show.

Think about the "contestants" for the kidney. I don't care how much I would need an organ to save my life or improve my quality of life - I would never consider going on television on a reality show to do it.

Now I know that y'all who have been reading for a long time know my feelings on reality shows - scripted game shows, basically. But honestly, this really pushes the limits. It makes Survivor and Big Brother and American Idol actually seem tasteful, and for me to say that is quite the experience.

This puts us on an interesting path. You know all those movies about the future when breeding is regulated, and other such nonsense? We're heading for it. After all, this is just the precursor to the premise presented (say that 5 times fast) in 'The Running Man'. The story there was that the US Economy had collapsed, civil liberties were in ruins and prisoners could go on a game show to outrun a bunch of gladiator style situations to earn their freedom (or die trying).

If you win (no one ever had) you get to live and if you don't win you *really* don't win. Isn't that what they're showing here? If the "contestant" wins, then they get a great shot at a normal life, assuming that the kidney is viable and they don't reject it post-transplant. If you don't win, then you sit on the donor list and continue your wait for something that may never come. It's an awful risk to take.

And think about it - if the audience is going to help this terminally ill woman pick the winner of the kidney, then the "contestants" are going to have to go that extra mile to either get the tears flowing in the viewers or look terrible enough that people are going to take pity on them.

So not only are you doing something that's just disgusting in the first place, you're going to have people pandering to the audience to get more sympathy, more votes, and a better shot at this poor woman's kidney...

...pass the bucket, I'm gonna hurl.