Cheaters on DVD!

I'd never trade living in Austin for living in Waco, Odessa or Abilene, but all three of those cities have something we don't: a TV channel that shows Cheaters.

Filmed on location in Dallas (already home to the most outrageous local TV spots for seedy divorce lawyers you've ever seen), Cheaters is a pseudo-reality show in which lovers/spouses who suspect they're being two-timed "hire" Cheaters' crack team of private investigators to find out if their suspicions bear fruit, which of course they always do. Video evidence is proffered to the cuckolds, reducing them to pathetic, quivering messes as the cameras roll.

The best part of the show is when the Cheaters crew accompanies the victim to ambush the cheater in the very act of cheating. Revenge is sought in the form of publicly humiliating the cheater. One time, the show's host trespassed onto the boat of a cheater who promptly stabbed him right in the stomach. It was hilarious. Cheaters is always dramatic, anguished and very obviously staged, but you don't care because the swindle itself is worth the price of admission.

I'll never understand why this All-American train wreck doesn't air in Austin, but now we can all own Cheaters forever on a four DVD box set loaded with bonus materials. I'm going to have to throw a Cheaters party real soon.