Keeping up with Kept

Jerry Hall fascinates. With her long swathe of blond hair, the imperfect smile, the posh twang that carries holdover vowels from her years with Mick -- the woman is a platinum-coated goddess among the Eurotrash. Her VH1 show, Kept, places her on a pedestal above a pack of pec-hard pikers. Each episode, one of the lads is ousted, forced to exit between two huge bouncers manning a set of velvet ropes, like a hustler being kicked to curb at Regine's. To earn Jerry's approval, the boys (all Americans and as thick-headed as your average catalog model) have to learn "skills" that would befit a high-end rent-boy (take that how you will). They've had etiquette lessons (!), learned to play polo and posed nude for each other's portraits, which were auctioned off to Jerry's pals. The whole show is like eating caviar on a Frito and washing it down with a Champagne-and-K-Orange mimosa. I can't get enough. Jus hearing La Jer say, "That one shood naht tawk." Satisfaction guaranteed.

Big Brother 6, where are ye? CBS had it on the sked for Saturday night, but ran a crime drama instead.

Even better than Fox's "kitchen apprentice" reali-TV Hell's Kitchen is BBC-America's repeats of Ramsay Revisited, featuring the same chef, Gordon Ramsay.

When they die and go to show business hell, Bronson Pinchot and Omarosa will feel deja vu all over again because they're currently exploiting their own unpopularity on Surreal Life (VH1). After Perfect Strangers ended, Pinchot popped up on a few more sitcoms, all duds. Anyone remember Meego (1997)? He starred as a 9000-year-old alien who crashes to earth and becomes a nanny for the family that finds him. (Co-stars included electric-car-loving Ed Begley Jr., and creepy-eyed child actor Jonathan Lipnicki).

At the network's press tour interview session for Meego in the summer of 1997, it was clear from the reaction of the 200 critics in attendance that this would be one short-lived series. After they ran a few clips and intro'd the cast, who sat onstage, the network flak asked if there were any questions from the critics. Dead silence. You could hear crickets chirping at the back of the room. Then one of the ballsier scribes spoke up: "What do the actors have planned when this show is canceled?"