I have watched this season with fading interest to see what is going on with father and son of this family based reality show. How long can this television show go on? As I recently wrote, it certainly is not about the motorcycles. The one big difference from previous years is how obvious it is that much of the show is now scripted. This has made me wonder if the family feud may not run as deep as the camera portrays. I have even wondered if this was all done for the show as I watch the scripted antics this year poorly played out. I wouldn’t think long but then again people keep watching Jersey Shore so what do I know?

Let’s speculate and examine why:

Senior: An admitted dead beat, alcoholic dad he spends week after week knocking down his son to make himself feel the bigger man. Yes, junior was lazy but maybe he should have not expanded or given him a piece of the business knowing what a slacker he is. Not that anyone would call senior super ambitious, at least that’s how the camera portrays him. During the past season we have all noticed senior getting smaller like he was losing weight but the word around Orange County is that he stopped taking steroids. True or not, one can assume a health issue is behind this and behind the tough guy slash immature old man lies a man who obviously wishes none of this happened. Sadly he seems to feel more indebted to the son he feels needs more help, something very common for any parent to do. I don’t think he is aware that he needs some attention as well and seems to have a dug a hole too large to simply back out of.

Junior: The kid obviously has an eye for design. The best bikes built come from his ideas but his relaxed attitude and changing of his mind were as much a cause of trouble as they were success. He is not as interesting a presence as his dad and the two actually need each other, but that’s nothing new in any successful relationship from business to marriage. He plays the victim to Senior’s attacks in the new show and a lot of it seems genuine, but once again it is becoming a bit tiring. Before the new show, Paul Jr. designs was set to do designs without the motorcycle limits but all we remember was the dog park that was pretty cool and a silly Coleman grill I saw in some stores but never bothered looking at. There was also a pitch for a line of dog toys to Bamboo Pets. Many people think his wife is with him for the money but to to be honest I never really thought about it.

Mikey: Once a bright, entertaining spot of the show, he has now become sad. Attempts from his father to give him work always turned into disaster leading one to wonder how Junior managed to get on the payroll and own part of the company with the same ambition. Most of his jobs involved titles with duties that included taking out the trash and answering phones. He always provided comic relief in the early years but it appears a lot of that was possibly alcohol fueled as he went into rehab in 2009. To see someone like this suddenly needing a personal assistant was just disgusting to people working hard to feed their family. I suspect the personal assistant was there to keep him from drinking. He has decided to become an artist and most would agree that his artwork is on par with someone in kindergarten. Most of it is just splashes on a canvas, something you could do on your own for cheap. You can buy his giclee prints on [url= his] website[/url] for around 50 bucks or do what he used to do, spend it on booze and splat your own canvas. You can also find his art on eBay Feedback Profile for mikeyteutul, but it appears he is doing better with autographed items and merchandise.

Everyone else: Might be part of the problem with the show and Orange County Choppers, a pretty boring background. We watch week after week as people laugh along with Senior when he isn’t funny, agree with him when he is wrong and in general just follow orders or come up with bad, uncontested ideas. If you surround yourself with “yes men” you better have one hell of a product. I honestly think the ying and yang went out the door with Junior. They used to go outside and break stuff but now that spare time is wasted listening to the two complain about each other.

Jason Pohl, the bike designer is a computer geek (so am I, that’s not a bad thing) who I never see ride a motorcycle and met the OCC guys by doing the design work on the OCC pinball prototype. He is a talented artist but not as interesting as the show seems to think by the attempts of having him behave over the top in obviously scripted moments. Most of us prefer to see more hands on to motorcycle building like when Rick Petko fabricates a tank. Sure, Rick is a bit flat as well but the fabrication work he does is interesting. Vinnie is also a talented builder but was disrespected when Senior called him “replaceable” years ago, something I thought was an early insight to his ego and character. Most of the other cast that we see are filler and typically void of any sort of television personality to warrant writing about. That annoying kid working at Paul Jr. Designs has to go. He is not talented and annoying as the day is long. He is the “Love to hate him” type without the “love to” part.

Perhaps this is what the family needs; to get rid of the plague that once again tore this family apart; Orange County Choppers and possibly save the business and reunite the family.

You have heard that money buys happiness and maybe even responded that you wish you had that sort of problem. I wonder how the Teutul family would respond?

Time will tell and I don’t think they have much left.

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