After sitting through another exhausting episode of BIG BROTHER — with its endless squabbling between the increasingly immature housemates — I realized that I never gave due praise to a little reality show that really deserved it: HERE COME THE NEWLYWEDS.

Airing over the past few months on ABC directly after THE BACHELORETTE, the woefully underrated NEWLYWEDS had something that few reality offerings do today: charm. The show appeared to be shot on a shoestring budget, had a laidback host and featured contestants who almost immediately defied the stereotypes which leapt to mind when they first appeared on screen.

During the first episode, I fell in loathe-at-first-sight with The Corliss’, who looked like a porn star and her meathead hubby. Yet by the end of the first hour, they’re wildly appealing senses of humor and down-to-earth nature had made them, against all odds, my favorites and the eventual winners. Thoughout the run of the show, each of the couples had their moments to shine and not a single one disappointed.

The same can not be said of this season’s housemates on BIG BROTHER. There’s not a Dan (last year’s winner) or Dr. Will (the charismatic bad guy who became one of the most compelling housemates in the show’s history) among them. Instead, we have loud, obnoxious, annoying people who are walking stereotypes. Worse, it is already wildly clear to anyone watching or reading about the live feeds that CBS is once again laying favorites in the editing of the show. A recently-aired confrontation between musclehead Russell and pretty-boy Jeff made the weightlifter look like the bad guy and his teammate look like an innocent man under attack. Of course, what they failed to show was the derogatory stream of gay slurs Jeff threw at his housemate on this occasion and several others.

Obviously, many of the people put into the BIG BROTHER house are there because they’ll create drama and, the network hopes, get people talking. But at this point, there seems to be no balancing personality… the person you root for amidst the madness.

And that’s why HERE COMES THE NEWLYWEDS deserves special — if belated — praise: The show went against the current trend in reality casting of looking for explosive personalities and instead gave us actual — God forbid — likeable people to root for. Here’s hoping that the network brings the show back next summer and gives us another batch of fun, relatable people whom we actually enjoy spending time with. It’d sure make a nice change of pace.