Battle of the Network Reality Stars; Premiering August 17, 2005 9PM on Bravo. Oddly enough, this time last year most of us had no idea who Jonathan Baker was... and under our very noses he and his wife, Victoria, had fully stuffed two backpacks and had hightailed it to Chicago to make the starting line of The Amazing Race. If one happened to catch the opening salvo of The Amazing Race 6, months later, one couldn't help noticing the wiry, uppity man in the bumblebee-yellow jersey with his piercing, calamitous eyes and the dyed blue hair-flair jutting against his nape. Reality Television's radar screen was just then beginning to pick-up his scent.

By David W. Taylor (Email Me)
Reality Reel Media
08.17.05

<img src=http://www.realityreel.com/images/jbaker.gif align=left>Redefining Reality TV. The Battle. The Soldiers. The Madman.

The buzz even early on was that Jonathan Baker was a Madman. From the moment he gamely declared to Bolo at O'Hare that they both were going to race like "superheroes," to shoving Victoria's knapsack during a Pit Stop dash in Berlin, Jon's presence was roughhewn and kinetic — like a bottled-up typhoon which lashed its pent-up squall-like fury at regular show-stopping clicks... oft times bombarding Victoria with undiluted ridicule and scorn. Much of the fireworks may have been caricatured through brazen editing — as Jon himself is wont to point out (see Reality Reel's May '05 Jon Baker Interview) — but whether or not there actually was fire following the smoke, Jonathan Baker has learned to cope. A post-Race nationally broadcast flash-anaylsis by Dr. Phil notwithstanding.

On August 17, 2005, Jonathan Baker and Victoria Fuller will return once again to yet another offspring of Reality Television's oft-times incestuous production cliques — boldly initiated by the seemingly endless Real World/Road Rules spin-offs — as they compete with 30 other Reality contestants — from a total of sixteen different Reality Shows — in Bravo's Battle Of The Network Reality Stars. This Reality fracas is closely formatted after the 70s' popular game show of the same title (just knock out the "Reality" bit) and was filmed over a week at Malibu's Pepperdine University.

But, first... Dude, let's catch up: "Well, it's not as exciting as last summer," says Jonathan, his eye on the past fizzled prize, and remembering. "That's for sure... actually it was a year ago today that we began the Race; it just started about a year ago!" I am also struck by that awkward feeling time-frame... a year ago? It seems like ages.