Question: What’s the Best Reality TV Elimination Ceremony?

In the best question since we were asked our opinion of Sen. Barak Obama’s response to the Rev. Wright controversy, James Poniewozik, who writes TIME magazine’s “Tuned In” column wondered which reality show does the best job of kicking participants off and why? Talk about a toughie! “Just in some of reality’s most popular shows,” he wrote, “there are a wide range of approaches:

* Survivor, in which by extinguishing the torch—”fire represents life”—Jeff Probst figuratively kills the contestant.

* American Idol, which, idiotically or ingeniously, has the eliminated singer perform again, getting millions of Americans to happily sit through their least favorite performance they already saw the night before. Cruel yet sappy, the send-off is almost performance-art-like in its zeal to prove that Americans really will watch anything.

* Bravo’s Magical Elves reality shows (Runway, Top Chef, et al.), with their curt, job-interview-like efficiency. (Though I hope Top Design rethinks its farewell, “See ya later, decorator!”)

One opinion: “Nobody says it better than Heidi.”