There Goes the Neighborhood

ABC yanks ugly reality show featuring too much ugly reality

Looks like "Desperate Housewives" will be rerun and rerun, since ABC was forced to scrap its summer replacement, "Welcome to the Neighborhood."

In the shows - all of them have been completed - seven diverse families seek votes from three white families in a development called Circle C Ranch, outside Austin. The white families, through a series of interviews, competitions and social interactions, award a 3,300-square-foot, four-bedroom, 2½-bathroom home to the winner - a neighbor, the families say, who will fit in with the community's mostly Christian and Republican values.

What made the contestants diverse? Race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion. You know, pretty much every single thing that's illegal to consider when selling or renting housing.

The real question is how the entire season got filmed before it occurred to anyone that it was offensive or illegal.

The New York Times has a decent write-up on it available here.