ANOTHER High Alert: Jeff Van Vonderen is BAAaaaacck!

I'm going to say what I have to say and then I'm done

Megan has alerted me (again) THAT JEFF VAN VONDEREN IS BACK on Intervention! My DVR is totally booked solid for the Monday night 8-10pm time slot and so I have make the heartrending Sophie's Choice between The Bachelorette, Intervention and Jon Plus Eight on Alternate Weekends, and Intervention has not been making the cut lately because they're really into addicts who have been molested this season and besides all the episodes end with these people accepting treatment at Recovery By The Sea and dying their hair for the 3 month followup. But apparently it's true, Jeff Van Vonderen is back from rehab and for his triumphal return he's going to invite Jason to join the fight against Jason's heroin addiction. Welcome back Jeff, we loved and missed you like crazy.

P.S. While you've been away, Candy and Ken have been stealing your lines and are taking credit for them.

Where in the World is Jeff Van Vonderen?

We're fighting to get you back and we want to invite you to join that fight

In the post Intervention Needed on Intervention, I describe how A&E should just shut down production on Intervention because they're having aged chipmunk Ken Seeley and wax figure Candy Finnegan doing all the interventions this season instead of Jeff Van Vonderen, which is a recipe for lame interventions and incomplete recoveries. This morning I received a comment on my blog stating that Jeff had gone AWOL from the show because he had a "relapse in his own addiction and is receiving treatment for it." My first thought was that that could not possibly be true because Jeff's only addiction is to KICKING ASS AND TAKING NAMES. However, internet research revealed that Jeff took a leave of absence from the show because he relapsed back to drinking/gambling. I'm obviously devastated to hear this news, but I just want to tell Jeff, if he's reading this:

I'm here today because I love you but I feel like I'm losing you. I want you to join in the fight to get you back. I remember the time I first watched Intervention. It was with that woman who was a millionaire but an alcoholic, and had to take a limo cross-country to get to the treatment center. You encouraged this trainwreck to leave her pets and get help. But now all that's changed. You're not on the show anymore. You've left Ken and Candy to help these addicts but Ken has a bad tattoo and Candy looks insane. They also are not as effective as you and sometimes they steal your lines. If you do not come back to the show TODAY, the following will change in our relationship: I will no longer send people flowers for their birthday and sign the card "Jeff Van Vonderen." I will not save the Intervention episodes on my DVR with the intention of one day converting it into a DVD even though I don't know how to do that. I cannot stand by as you allow this show to be destroyed by Ken and Candy. Please accept this precious gift today.

Intervention Needed on Intervention

Jumped the shark?

Um, has anybody else noticed that on ALL the new episodes of Intervention, Jeff Van Vonderen has gone completely AWOL, and now Ken Seeley is running the show. In fact, in a preview for next week's epsiode, they brought out Candy Finnegan for a girl who appears to be doing crack. Alrighty - I guess this means that this season the producers are actively trying to get the addicts NOT to go to treatment, because if they did they would have Jeff in there telling the addict that the family feels like they're losing them and they want to invite to invite them to join the fight, following which the addict would go to Broken Branch Horizons in Tuscon, Arizona and get their shit together. But no, instead they have Ken Seeley in there generally being a wimp, bragging about how he was a former meth addict and attempting to conceal his bad tattoo on his left bicep with garish colored polo shirts from Sperry Topsider. And as a direct result of having Ken and not Jeff, Janet went to rehab and then appeared ungrateful in the follow-up, and Nicole didn't complete treatment and still has that gross feeding tube in her stomach.

So in order to help all the addicts who need real interventions, I would like to propose that in the middle of Ken or Candy doing some lame intervention on an addict, Jeff Van Vonderen break into the conference room and announce that he's no longer going to stand by and watch Ken or Candy kill the addicts with crappy interventions, and that unless Ken or Candy get treatment TODAY to become better interventionists, the following things will change: They will no longer be allowed to be on Intervention; they will no longer receive checks from Intervention and Jeff Van Vonderen will re-do all the interventions previously ineffectively done by Ken and Candy. I would like to ask Ken and Candy to please accept this precious gift today that is being offered to you.

Intervention

[insert haunting xylophone music here]

On Monday as I was sitting on my couch watching Intervention and drinking a Smirnoff Ice because that's the way I roll, it reminded me that the whole problem with the show, which in general rules to a very high degree, is that you can always tell how serious the addicts problem is by who they get to be the interventionist. Like if Jeff van Vonderen is on the case, you know the producers are taking that shit VERY seriously, and the addict is going to be told that there are a bunch of people who love him, they feel like they're losing him and they just want to invite the addict to join the fight, and that they're going to say what they're gonna say, the addict is gonna say what he's gonna say and then they're done, and it ends with the addict going to rehab and staying sober. If the addict is beyond help (um, CRISTY) or will likely go to rehab and then immediately relapse and the intervention is a joke, they get chipmunk Ken Seeley who brags about his old addiction to meth so that Jeff's reputation for 100% ass kicking and recovery doesn't get ruined. If the producers REALLY think the addiction is ridiculous, like a tanning or compulsive shopping, they call in Candy Finnigan, because Jeff isn't touching that shit with a ten foot pole, and even Ken's people have advised him that it's bad for his image.

In any event, I'm not sure how Intervention is still on, because the show is premised on the idea that none of the addicts own a tv or have ever watched A&E before and therefore would know that if someone tells them they're filming them for a documentary about addiction they should be expecting an intervention in a hotel room in approximately 2 weeks.