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?

The Earth’s population has gone from 1 billion people to 7 billion in just 200 years, and overpopulation will drain the planet’s natural resources before this century is over. But hey, isn’t it just TERRIFIC that Michelle Duggar of TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting” is pregnant with her 20th child? Ha ha, f*cking fantastic news!

“We are due in April and just thrilled,” Michelle told Ann Curry during the ["Today Show"] broadcast [video below]. “We have the motto in our house that there’s always room for one more.”

The couple welcomed their 19th child, Josie, in 2009. During the pregnancy, Michelle suffered gall-bladder problems and preeclampsia, giving birth to Josie three and a half months prematurely. At birth, the infant weighed one pound, six ounces but is now a healthy toddler about to celebrate her second birthday.

“We’ll have to wait and see [about more children],” said Michelle. “We would love however many the Lord sees fit to give us.” [THR]

Congratulations, Michelle! Now that you’re 44 and cruising toward menopause, I sure hope the Lord doesn’t see fit to give your next baby Down Syndrome. You know, the Lord works in such mysterious ways, the way He statistically makes it more dangerous for an older woman to give birth. I guess just keep praying really hard!

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Sigh. There’s going to be a one-hour special on the world’s shortest man, Edward Hernandez, a 25-year-old Colombian not much larger than a corgi. On TLC. Of course TLC. It would be nowhere else but TLC. From THR:

At 27 inches tall (that’s 2 feet 3 inches, people!) he’s the Guinness world record holder for being the shortest man on earth. The special follows Hernandez as he deals with his newfound fame and wonders just how long it will all last before someone else takes the title from him.

There’s video below, and it just depresses the hell out of me. Seriously, watching TLC is like stepping inside the tent of a Depression-era circus. The lions are all sick and mangy, the ringmaster is an oily two-bit swindler, and the people in the freak show are kept in cages and brought out only to be gawked and prodded with sticks. TLC is awful.

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