Starring: Ruby Gettinger
Executive Producer: Sarah Weidman
Network: Style Network
Original Air Date: 11/09/2008 -

At first glance there might seem something slightly odd about a show centered on the efforts of a morbidly obese woman to slim down from upwards of 500 lbs appearing on the style network. At second glance Ruby might in fact seem to be the very worst, most insidious idea so-called “reality television” has ever vomited forth from of its diseased orifice. After all, here is a woman so beyond obesity that to continue her lifestyle even one more day invites debilitating sickness and death that nonetheless is prepared to exhibit her impossible struggle on television for mass consumption. And compelled by the very nature of reality television you can be sure that on the other side of the camera is a room full of “development” people, commanding a salary, whose sole purpose is to dream up ways for her to potentially stumble and fail and then somehow integrate them into the show.

What a blessed relief than that at no point does Ruby ever allow this to become just another cynical sideshow. A bright and bubbly Savannah southern belle, Ruby Gettinger is an irresistible force of personality whose warmth and openness about herself and her condition just draw you towards her. Joining her on this epic odyssey of weight loss and rehabilitation are Ruby’s live in roomies and self-confessed serial enablers, the camp-as-a-row-of-tents Jeff, and her hilariously gormless home schooled “nephew” Jim, who bizarrely lives there because his parents “got a cat and he’s allergic.” (!)

Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.

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