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This morning, while jogging through the Internet’s myriad vaults, we stumbled onto a Reuters/Hollywood Reporter interview with Fox president of alternative entertainment Mike Darnell. It's he who must bear ultimate responsibility for such reality television nadirs as Who’s Your Daddy?, Temptation Island, The Swan and, most recently, The Moment of Truth. No doubt, badges of pride to him, all.

It’s an enjoyable interview; Mr. Darnell is well-spoken and we found his bald-faced forthrightness rather amusing. It took until the piece’s penultimate exchange before we were stunned back into real reality and forced to question our complicity as media consumers.

Read on with caution, as we didn't make this next part up.

Darnell: Female Prison Beauty Pageant. It was done in Croatia and is a big number waiting to happen. It's empowering to women; it's empowering to prisoners. The whole idea of going from prisoner to hot babe is interesting.

Female Prison Beauty Pageant? Really? In spite of Mr. Darnell’s claim, we fail to see how this could possibly be empowering to either women or prisoners, much less both. And, even so, we aren't convinced it’s really such a good idea to empower prisoners. Seems kind of like the opposite of what you’d want to achieve there.

Of course, following this logic to the finish line, the season finale could be amazing!

Just imagine: a maddened throng of hardened female criminals, decked out in shimmering ball gowns and sparkling tiaras, vengeance-filled invectives spilling from their rubied lips! They storm the warden’s office and set fire to the guard’s station. An appropriated cargo van bursts through the chain-link fence surrounding the penitentiary! Behind the wheel, Miss Incarcerated 2008 bears down on the film crew. Grips, camera operators and craft services scatter! One man maintains his resolve, seemingly apathetic to the certain doom coming down hard upon him. It is, of course, Fox president of alternative entertainment Mike Darnell. The van comes to a sudden and screeching halt—the front bumper just inches away from the blood-rusted, pitchfork-gripped in Mr. Darnell’s left hand. Sprouting a pair of massive, leathery wings, he lifts his cloven hooves from the sodden earth beneath him and sends a blazing rain of hellfire down upon the whole lot beneath him. Souls screaming in agony! Ratings through the roof.