I was one of those people who hated the very idea of reality shows, who rolled their eyes while others heatedly argued about plot twists and contestants, who smirked at the idea of finding love amidst a pool of selected candidates. In fact, I'm still one of those people. But for two months, I made an exception for a reality show regarded as a joke even by reality show fans.

I'm not sure what about Outback Jack made me follow it so eagerly.

This is not a masterpiece of television. But it's fun, and the characters are endearing, and there are enough clues and red herrings scattered along the way to keep most of us guessing. A necklace is given, a secret tryst is made, a girl's hand is taken. But the premise of the show is so--silly.

I certainly did my fair share of eye-rolling during the first episode. The show started with twelve manicured, pedicured, pampered young American women in sumptuous evening gowns, arriving by limousine to a luxurious mansion. There, they were told by host J. D. Roberto (whose arrival, true to unwritten reality show code, will unfailingly elicit comic groans from one and all) that they would meet the bachelor of their dreams in sunny Australia. The plane ride was apparently uneventful enough, but it concluded by dropping them into the wilderness, kicking and screaming, by parachute.

After her own ride, one of the contestants growled, 'If he's ugly, I'm going to kick his [expletive].'

That seemed to be the general sentiment. Vadim Dale, introduced to us as Outback Jack, arrived to meet them, tanned, well-built, and achingly handsome, backlit against the sky like the hero of an old Western.

'Hello, ladies,' he said, smiling his soon-to-be famous smile. 'Welcome to the outback.'

Eleven of the twelve ladies (one sent herself home) decided that he was worth the unexpected parachute ride, as well as living in tents without 'outlets for electronics' (as Natalie, a girl so endearing that even her incessant whining read as cute), and fighting dirt,wild animals, and 'bugs crawling across my Chanel bag' (as Courtney, a fan favorite, remarked).

He had them--and us--at the smile.

So chalk up one reason for following the show. The ladies were another. Though ridiculously prissy (and unintentionally hilarious), they were really quite decent. Despite TBS' attempts to villainize Marissa, she never went beyond an arrogant comment and the occasional attempt to start a food fight. As the token villian, however, she did fuel much of the drama from the very first episode. She won our sympathy by suffering from heat stroke in that episode, and being accused of feigning the illness to monopolize Jack's attention. However, Marissa (or the editing team) made valiant efforts to lose all of that sympathy by exaggerating her competitive nature--apparently, she's not above using her elbows to one-up her rivals in a bare-handed fishing contest. One of the show's cleverer twists occurred when she was voted out by the other girls, and returned in a hilariously overdone episode. The host: 'We told the girls they could vote somebody out. We never told them that they could send anyone home.'

But TBS was really quite kind to its contestants. At one point, the girls found that the host had a collection of 'embarassing videos' to show Jack and his mother. Moments of catty gossip about the other girls? Perhaps confessions about unsavory intentions for Jack?

Rather, the girls' families talking warmly about how much they loved them.

In an earlier show, a so-called 'challenge' was extended to the ladies to track Jack through the wilderness. This consisted of following a trail marked by colored flags and occasionally retrieving clearly worded signs from spider-webs and underneath comatose lizards. Ho-hum. (Incidentally, some of the ladies still got lost.) This is not a Survivor-esque show of thrills and gratuitous horror. You may cringe a bit when the girls have to closely examine alligators to determine their sex, or eat green ants (that apparently taste like Sour Patch kids, according to Natalie)--but there are no life-on-the-line situations to keep us on the edge of our seats. Ultimately, what it came down to was that viewers grew to care about Jack and his 'twelve monsters.' (Yes, that's a direct quote, and considering the maintenance these girls required, perhaps a fair one. On monitoring their canoing: 'I needed three pairs of eyes to watch out for these girls . . . I don't know what was going through their heads as they rowed head-first into a tree trunk.')

We never got to see much of Laura (whose beauty was as stunning as her ability to unblushingly drop remarks like, 'I hate the outback, they should burn it down and build a mall.'). Or Jillian, or Summer, who were all eliminated by the first episode. Natasha eliminated herself. But we did get to know warm, affable Harmonie. We came to admire Shannon, whose quiet dignity and reserve unfortunately did not serve her well in a reality show.

And, well, thousands across the country may have winced when bouncy, wide-eyed Mary tried to win Jack by song (you had to see it to believe it). We may have snickered when she confided into the camera, 'I'm just so afraid that I'm going to be dropped somewhere where I can't get my nails done, or my hair done.' But she was open and honest and she was her own person. She was all right with herself, so why shouldn't we be? And in the tense moments of the elimination that would remove her from the show, Mary won our respect. She comforted another contestant who was crying with suspense, and even when she realized that she was being sent home that day, she kept her head up high and a smile on her face. Reality show contestants are judged by their exits, not their entrances--and that was a classy exit.

Fans of the show were split between Marissa and Adrienne, the other 'strong woman' of the party. Adrienne quickly came to lead the other girls, and the conflict between her and the lone wolf Marissa was fairly intense. No hair-pulling or straight-out cat fights even here, however, though there was a mild confrontation around the bonfire and a fairly vicious (for the show) moment when they voted each other out. (Adrienne, guardedly: 'Marissa . . . did not embrace the group.'/Marissa, immediately afterwards: 'I think Adrienne is . . . rude, and classless, and she doesn't belong in the Outback.') Despite their hostility, we could respect both women for their determination and drive--just as we adored Courtney for her all-American friendliness, reluctance to stoop to game-playing, and basic decency.

Meri-De was a late-comer in the game, having won a place on the team at Mary's expense after the 'city girls' duked it out with a group of 'adventure girls' (by a disappointingly tame obstacle course). Meri-De's independence and initially bemused attitude towards the game made her a quick favorite, though her casual, easy-going style led to a painful elimination.

The competition ultimately narrowed down to three: the intriguing Marissa, the passionate Maria, and the inimitable Natalie, whose comic grimaces and off-beat humor had kept us laughing throughout. Marissa had the approval of Jack's mother, whom the girls had to charm in one episode (by discussing their opinions on premarital sex, for instance), and one or two illicit trysts with Jack. Maria was certainly beautiful and affectionate (and she teared up in fear at nearly every elimination--and for a while, Jack seemed to enjoy playing with this by speaking as if he would eliminate her until the very last moment), and she had had an occasional under-the-counter meeting with Jack herself. But in the season finale, the most pampered city-girl of all, Natalie (or as Jack nick-named her, 'Princess') carried the day.

The winner of the game was the girl who had seemed the least emotionally invested in it. Honestly, the most heart-rending moment of the show for her seemed to be the sacrifice of a French tip to better examine the cavities of an alligator. During the Jack-hunt, she calmly watched her partner dig for clues while commenting, 'I would have helped Maria dig, but I have nine other French tips to protect.'

We may have laughed at her, but we laughed kindly. We liked her. We liked all of them.

And Jack--the cynic in me says that he couldn't really feel that he had a 'connection' with all the contestants, or feel all that terribly about eliminating them--but deep down, maybe we all admire a man who can cry. Maybe we bought into the girls' fantasies about a chivalrous hero who protected them from alligators and dingoes and watched over them while they slept. Who knows? We swooned over him, too. We dared to think that perhaps this was a man who was better than the reality show, we wanted to believe him when he said that 'eliminations' were not part of who he truly was.

Best wishes to you, Jack and Natalie.