What else is on?

Nature documentaries, a televised lecture about the history of paint, a reality show about a bunch of people crammed into a house together and filmed, a reality show about a guy going on dates with a bunch of different women and dismissing one every episode, a timelapse of a house being built, a piano concert, a jazz band, a guided meditation program, a weather report, the national news, a documentary about a political campaign, a combination history/reality show where some reenactment people attempt to demonstrate how medieval tools and practices work while actually temporarily living under conditions requiring them, a dance contest, a comedian making observations about how escalators can only become stairs, and an infomercial for a blanket with sleeves.

She'll start with the dating reality show.

"On our last episode..."

Shot of a pretty woman with plenty of makeup on, tossing her perfectly wavy hair, with a label naming her "Carly" superimposed. "I think of myself as pretty easygoing and able to get along with nearly anyone, which is why I thought I'd be a good fit for this show where you date a stranger. But I like some people better than others, and compared to Al... I prefer Rachel."

Swooping shot of this pretty woman kissing another pretty woman!

Closeup of an interview with Rachel! "Kissing her felt good. Like, really good. Much better than kissing Al. Next time they do a season of this program they should check if the guy is a good kisser. But it's also possible he's fine and I'm just gay. I'm sorting out my feelings on that now because it's not what I was expecting. I had a late and perhaps incomplete sexual awakening. I want to put my face on Carly's cleavage."

"On this episode of The Bachelor," says the announcer, "will Al dismiss Rachel? Will he dismiss Carly? Will he keep them both, and send away..."

Interview with someone named Delia. "I'm really homesick. I keep asking Al to send me home, so I don't have to void my contract by running away in order to leave, which sounds very scary, but he keeps telling me that he's trying to follow the rules and only get rid of the girls he likes least. Do you think if I put shaving cream on his pillow he'd stop liking me?"

Interview with someone named Vera. "I want to marry him because I think I can convince the studio to pay for a lavish wedding where I'll feel very special and beautiful, and that's important to me even if we'd probably get divorced in less than six months, but I think I really disappointed him during the talent show where I got a bunch of wrong notes by trying an overambitious song."

Interview with Tammy. "He's really hot! I think this week I can convince him to hook up with me, if I can find some condoms, but I looked moderately hard for about six minutes and didn't find any and the producers aren't telling me where they are... maybe Al has them all?"

Interview with Patrice. "I just want to be on TV as long as possible but it's possible that telling Al that I have no interest in him as a person really hurt my chances."

Interview with Charity. "I blew him but he said it was underwhelming. I think he's probably done with me."

"Or," says the announcer, "will he surprise us, and dismiss a dark horse candidate? I don't know what he's going to do and I'm kind of on tenterhooks about it because I have formed a parasocial relationship with Patrice and feel invested in her success! Now, here's - The Bachelor, The Al Season: Episode Seven: Beach Episode."

The girls are now all shown deciding what bikinis to wear and chatting with the camerapeople about their decisionmaking process; there are a few extra girls, not just the ones shown.

. . . Stots.  The future or whatever is very sexual.  And showing two women kiss who aren't even actors - are they both solquinoxes?  They probably are; it kind of seems like you wouldn't get the thing where sometimes they pair off with evener folks the same sex as them if your society hadn't even noticed they were desirable.

Ellie remembers getting sucked into infomercials when she was small enough to still live with her parents; how about that sleevey blanket?

It's currently on a part of the infomercial where it shows a bunch of people petting it or putting it on or rubbing it on their face and then exclaiming over how soft and cozy it is.

Ellie will indeed get sucked into this for at least a few minutes.

Historical reality show?

"I'm going to go collect some of my piss because under the circumstances we're operating under for this show I don't have a better way to get ahold of urea, which has various uses in agriculture and manufacture! But they're not going to film me peeing, because that wasn't in my contract!" a man wearing period garb tells the camera, and then it cuts to someone shearing sheep.

Ew.  She switches to guided meditation.

The guided meditation leads her through a body scan where she's supposed to focus on all the individual parts of her body, relax them, and move on. There are sometimes odd breaks in the continuity of the voice, like they couldn't record it in one take, but there is no extraneous commentary in this one.

Okay actually this is boring.

. . . . back to The Bachelor?

They've made Carly captain of one beach volleyball team and Rachel captain of the other team, probably to stir up drama! They're taking turns picking girls, and at the end Al is supposed to decide which team he'd like to lend his support to. He winds up choosing Rachel's team "but it's not that much to do with who I like better, I just think they'll win", and then they play volleyball in the sand.

Ellie will stick at this one for a while to see whether it ends up dramaful!  And also to try and tell whether either of the lesbians seem odd in the birthdayish sense; she's pretty sure a society couldn't go very long without noticing they had the same set of solquinoxes as at home, but she's seen at least one movie with the premise that there were different ones, so maybe that's what's going on here?

Carly and Rachel keep blowing each other kisses. Delia gets hit on the head with the ball and takes the excuse to sit out. She starts building a sandcastle. Eventually Rachel's team wins. Rachel is now supposed to throw Carly into the sea as a penalty, which she does with a lot of unnecessary groping. Tammy and a girl called Lateisha get into a fight about Tammy thinking that Lateisha should have tried harder not to kick sand in her face and Lateisha thinking that having established it was an accident they should drop the subject.

They all watch the sunset over the water; highlight clips of them splashing around, retreating from the cold water, and building more sandcastles play; they have snacks and cocktails and are inverviewed about how they feel about their chances of dismissal tonight.

Ultimately Al dismisses Patrice and Charity and a girl called Simone who has been very much in the background. Sad instrumental music plays as they collect their single stem roses from him and file off the set.

The end credits play over a still of Rachel carrying Carly to the sea to throw her in.