Celebrity Wife Swap – Everything is calm, cool and collected

You settle in expecting one thing and you get another.

Has that ever happened to you? In a manner of speaking, I was ready for a complete freak show to emerge out of my television set with this episode of Celebrity Wife Swap, but I got something altogether different.

Here … I’ll give you a taste of what could have been. The following 10 minute plus video is courtesy of Fox’s Good Day LA with Steve Edwards and Jillian Reynolds which aired Tuesday morning:

All kinds of fun going on there, wouldn’t you agree? From Ted Haggard‘s explanations to Gary Busey‘s eccentricities. (He is in his own little world a lot of times.)

The actual show, however, was rather drab if shenanigans were what you were looking forward to. We saw some honesty and humbleness from the guys as to their beliefs and also a bit of real mental work and genuine concern on the part of Ted’s wife Gayle and Gary’s significant other Steffanie.

Past episodes of Wife Swap have unleashed a bevy of dramatical turns. But this celebrity edition made you scootch up in your comfy living room chair a little with interest rather than make you pick your jaw up off the floor in amazement. The hour focused on Haggard either explaining his position since the disgrace of his gay sex and drug scandal came to light or doting over his kids and what his actions had done to them in contrast to Busey’s day-to-day (of which little was actually revealed). No one blew their lid, neither of the wives threw up their hands in defeat, there weren’t any “woe is me” or “woe for this family” crying jags from any body. It was more the engrossing documentary with an air of concern for the players in the game than it was a freak show. Not that I was expecting a freak show, mind you … but I wasn’t prepared for the calm, cool and collectedness of either Haggard or Busey coming out my flat screen.

Guess I’ll just have to look toward to next week’s edition with Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider and hip-hop showman Flavor Flav for the freak show to appear. That one will certainly provide the fireworks.