Well well well, if it isn’t our old friend, Patti Stanger. When the “Millionaire Matchmaker” star isn’t making sweeping generalizations about Jews and gays, she stays busy by being a  bitch to the wayward idiots who think she can successfully set them up with wealthy mates. In this virtuoso collection of c*ntery created by Vulture, you can watch Stanger put down dozens of women far more attractive than she is — and some men, too (“I wouldn’t have sex with you, and I wouldn’t give you a blowjob,” she says to a hobbit whose response should be relief). All in all, the video makes me wonder how Patti was only the 11th on my list of TV’s most punchable faces.

Oh, and Patti, here’s a quick evaluation of your assets: you’re a hatchet-faced sea cow that couldn’t be made attractive by all the cosmetics in the world, but your face isn’t half as ugly as your personality.

The good news: Andy Cohen, the executive vice president of programming for Bravo (we have him to thank for “Millionaire Matchmaker” and the endless variants of “Real Housewives”), will take a reduced role behind the scenes of the network next year. The bad news: he’s only doing that because the show he hosts, “Watch What Happens Live,” will start airing five nights a week.

The network will announce Tuesday that Mr. Cohen’s show, which now runs twice a week, on Sundays and Mondays, will extend to five nights starting Jan. 8, with the big wrinkle that its schedule will still include Sunday and eliminate Friday. As Michael Davies, the show’s executive producer, put it, “Sunday night is wide open in late night.” [...]

The show has no opening monologue, more reality TV guests than any other late-night show, and the only on-set bar serving cocktails to guests and audience alike.

In addition to the reality TV stars, especially from Bravo’s own shows (lots of housewives), more familiar names like Jerry Seinfeld, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Tina Fey have turned up. [NYT]

Andy Cohen can sometimes seem like a warm, friendly person, so it’s important to remember that he hates the sound of children singing. And after the apocalypse, if any slice of humanity remains, he should be remembered as a key player in the downfall of Western Civilization: in creating Bravo’s massive slate of reality programming, he set the standard for giving reality fame-whores larger platforms and their own shows — and then he made “Watch What Happens Live” as a way to increase those platforms and give himself a slice of the fame. Everything about Cohen and Bravo is parasitic, cancerous, and antithetical to creative television. The world would be a better place if he got stabbed to death by a Filipino vagrant.

I know it’s been on your mind. It’s been keeping you up at night, filling your sweaty dreams with worry: would “Bachelorette” Ali Fedotowsky and fiancé Roberto Martinez follow through with a wedding? Or would their love end in disillusion and sadness like 19 of the 20 previous pairings that “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” had created? If only a publicist could tell us in a way that completely insults our collective intellect. Ah, here we are:

“Ali Fedotowsky and Roberto Martinez have ended their relationship,” the couple’s rep tells PEOPLE. “As they go through this difficult time, we ask that you respect the couple’s privacy.”

I’ve seen a lot of stupid crap from stupid publicists, but this might be a new low. “These people competed on a reality TV show in order to be paired as mates. Please respect their privacy, which they so obviously cherish.”

By the way, the updated success rate for “Bachelor/ette” winners is now 1-for-21 (Trista Rehn and Ryan Sutter are the only married couple; couple #22 — Ashley and J.P. from “The Bachelorette” — are still together for the moment). That’s a success rate of 4.7%. At this point, completely random selection would be as effective at producing an actual marriage, and yet WOMEN CANNOT STOP WATCHING THIS SHOW. If men had any sense at all, we’d all be gay and let the human race become extinct.

TLC is actually making something I don’t outright despise: a dating show called “Geek Love” in which sci-fi enthusiasts engage in speed dating at places like Comic-Con, where the pool of hapless, socially inept virgins is unusually deep.

The network has ordered Geek Love, a project that follows a speed-dating service at nerd-drawing events like Comic-Con. TLC greenlit two half-hour specials that will air next month and plans to make the project a full-fledged series if the specials draw large enough ratings. [EW]

EW also has an exclusive video of highlights, which I absolutely recommend watching. It starts with a guy touting his Chewbacca call, then features the girl in the inset picture saying, “It’s hard to find someone in the outside world you like because it’s really hard to find someone who understands you.” I can’t imagine why that might be.

There are few things I love to hate more than TLC’s programming, and TLC’s programming is rarely more hate-able than during the holiday season. Here’s only a sampling of what cable’s most shameless network (aside from maybe E!) has on tap in December:

On Extreme Christmas Trees, the special uncovers the lengths some will go to make their tree really sparkle… One is so spectacular, it lands in the Swedish Art Gallery and another in Las Vegas boasts more than $200,000 in ornaments…

Invasion of the Christmas Lights: Europe follows six families try to create the most elaborate lighting displays in that part of the world. No matter how much hard work, ingenuity, and risk the task takes, they make sure the holidays get their proper, um, spotlight…

TODDLERS & TIARAS HOLIDAY EPISODE — The holidays come alive at the Southern Celebrity Glitzmas Pageant in New Jersey. Three-year-old Laila and her mom have gone all out with a Rockette routine while scene stealers Riley, 5 and Bob, 6 tear up the stage with their fierce drag queen moves.

MY BIG FAT GYPSY CHRISTMAS — TLC peels back yet another intriguing layer of traveller culture as the cameras revisit dress-maker Thelma Madine to a small town in Ireland where roaming travellers return each year to celebrate Christmas (along with extravagant weddings and First Communions). This festive episode will catch up with some of the characters from the series and promises to deliver over-the-top parties and of course huge dresses. [THR]

To recap: EXTREME XXXMAS TREES! Crazy Christmas lights… IN EUROPE! Toddler Rockettes! And HUUUUUUUUGE gypsy dresses!!!! Even with excessive exclamation points and all-caps, this sounds boring as sh*t to me. Sometime I really don’t understand America.

You may remember him from such drivers' ed films as "Alice's Adventures Through the Windshield Glass" and "The Decapitation of Larry Leadfoot."

TLC has long been America’s #1 channel for people seeking a 21st century freak show, but the cable network is edging into truTV’s territory with its newest offering:

The network has ordered D.U.I., a new series that goes behind the scenes of drunk-driving law enforcement in Oklahoma. TLC has picked up 12 episodes, with six debuting next month and the rest planned for 2012.

Unlike COPS, the TLC show just focuses on drunk-driving suspects and follows their story from being pulled over and being interrogated, to, if necessary, arrest and sentencing. [EW]

I freely admit that drunk people getting arrested can be hilarious (see: donka doo balls), but as someone who’s been pulled over under suspicion of DUI three different times (and never arrested!), I don’t think I could enjoy this. Even when you’re SOBER it’s an incredibly annoying/scary process. “I can smell alcohol in your vehicle.” Yeah officer, did you not see the three Marines passed out in my car? Or did you just think they were really tired from volunteering at a soup kitchen on a Saturday night?

Ahhhh, nothing makes me feel like intellectual pursuits are a complete waste quite like Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi speaking straight from the heart. This time, the New York Times bestselling author sat down with GQ and shared her views about reading, politics, how she’d change “Jersey Shore,” and absolutely nothing that will make you feel good about the state of the nation. Choice excerpts:

GQ: So, I’ve got to ask: You’ve really never heard of J.K. Rowling or Maya Angelou?
Snooki: I don’t read. I don’t like to read Harry Potter or anything like that. It’s not my style.

GQ: But you’re a New York Times best-selling author!
Snooki: Yeah, doesn’t mean I have to read.

GQ: Fair point. What is your favorite book?
Snooki: Dear John. I read that in a day because it was so amazing. And then I ended up seeing the movie and it was really good. [SERIOUSLY? -Ed.] We were supposed to read in high school but I never did because I just used the CliffsNotes, books were too long.

*rubs temples* I… I don’t even want to process everything I just read there. Let’s just move on to how smart Snooki thinks she is:

GQ: What do you think people’s perception is of you guys?
Snooki: They just think that we’re stupid, that we have no education, and all we do is drink, have sex.

GQ: Do you want to change that?
Snooki: Oh, I would love to. I have an education, I went to college, you know?

Went. Not finished. Not graduated. Went.

GQ: What was your major?
Snooki: Veterinarian tech. Test me and bring me to a hospital. I can induce an animal, do surgery, do anesthesia, and take blood. So if you want to tell me I’m stupid again, let’s go to an animal hospital.

If I hand you a book at the animal hospital, can I still call you stupid?

GQ: What’s an animal that you’ve worked with before?
Snooki: I did dogs and cats. I’ve actually worked with ducks, drew blood from a horse, and stuck my hand in a cow’s ass.

That’s the least surprising — and possibly least depressing — statement in this entire interview.

Even the best reality competitions — and “Top Chef” is certainly that — rely on a format that’s as predictable as it is comfortable to viewers. That’s what makes this video from Jest so funny: in a TV landscape where spin-offs are everywhere, the notion of “Top Chef” focusing on hapless fathers isn’t THAT big of a stretch. And the way this catches the details of “Top Chef” — the kitchen confrontations, the confessionals about teammates, the camera sweeping across the completed dishes — in an economical two and a half minutes makes this a great little spoof.

Judge 1: Charles. I really love the decision to serve the pizza cold.
Judge 2: And the orange soda being flat was a nice touch.
Charles: I lost the top a couple days ago, so I covered it in plastic wrap. No sense in throwing it out!

Expensive Private School Dogs watch 'Jersey Shore' for the subtle nods to Godard

I watch “Jersey Shore” for the drinking and fighting and terrible clothes and irresponsible sexual activity, but I’ve always felt that there was something MORE that I was missing, some kind of deeper meaning. Thankfully, someone at the elite University of Chicago organized a symposium to analyze “Jersey Shore” in the most pretentious terms possible.

[Deena] popped up frequently as a subject of academic discussion, particularly for an episode in which she thwarted the Situation’s attempt to bring home twins by swiping one for herself. In the process she became a trickster figure, upending the show’s heteronormativity and its power dynamics.

*kisses fingers* Ahhh, now THAT is some Grade-A pretentious academic codswallop if I’ve ever seen it. Nevertheless, I could use some more references to Marx and Foucault:

“MTV gets this,” insisted Ellie Marshall, a McGill undergraduate with the distinction of having interned for the show’s executive producer, making her the only conference participant with hands-on experience. One of the slides in her presentation was titled “Bodily Discipline: Foucault + Snooki = BFF.” After she showed a clip of Snooki getting arrested on the beach during Season 3 while onlookers gawked at her celebrity misbehavior, Ms. Marshall argued that it was the audience that was being arrested and rendered docile, not Snooki.

If she didn’t use the phrase “fourth wall,” I will eat my hat.

Atle Mikkola Kjosen, a graduate student at the University of Western Ontario, suggested that the show upends Marx’s proposition that the optimal worker is a regulated worker, one who’s allowed to rest. “Jersey Shore” labor is 24-hour labor, both on and off camera, and the show improves in proportion to the toll that ruthless schedule takes on the protagonists.

And to think, some people saddled with six figures of debt from private universities can’t get jobs in today’s market. It’s unfathomable.

China’s government is upset with the way television is “fueling more independent viewpoints” and has ordered “overly entertaining” shows off the air by next year. Well, at least they’ll still get CBS. From the AP:

The order from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television refers to shows that are vulgar or “overly entertaining.” It singles out programs dealing with marital troubles and matchmaking, talent shows, game shows, variety shows, talk shows and reality programming.

I don’t say this too often, but man: way to go, Chinese Communist Party.

Such shows must be largely phased out by the beginning of next year by the country’s 34 satellite TV stations, to be replaced with news and cultural programming. The order also bans viewership surveys and the use of ratings as the sole criteria for whether to broadcast a particular show…

The crackdown coincides with a bout of national hand-wringing over a lack of public ethics, highlighted by the death last week of a toddler who was struck by a vehicle and left for dead by passersby.

That story doesn’t surprise me in the least. I just hope those “public ethics” make it to Chinatown. “You ever ride public transportation with the Chinese? They’re goddamn animals,” is what a racist person might say.