It seems Leslie Napolitano and Christine Collica didn't hear the one about never working with kids on camera. These two New Yorkers thought it would be fun to run a preschool - and turn the four-day experiment into a cutesy reality show. Daycare Divas (Tuesday, 10 p.m. on TLC) is aptly named. These two fame-seeking caregivers spend so much time trying to control and outperform each other in front of the camera that the kids, no matter how saucy, come out looking even more adorable. In fact, when Leslie whines, "I don't work well with chaos. Chaos stresses me out!" you wonder why the heck she wanted to run a daycare at all. The women's hearts are in the right place, and what parent can't empathize when the camera captures one of them sighing, "I want to get a drink!" at the end of a particularly chaotic day. But Leslie and Christine's methods often leave a lot to be desired, especially when Emma, the oldest child in their care (bored after four days of hanging out with little kids) acts out. Suddenly, the show turns the young girl into a reality-show archetype: the mean one. Emma becomes a target - quick edits play back each outburst and, in one bit, slows down her speech to make her sound like a creature from a horror movie. It's truly appalling. When mom picks her up, though, Emma gets the last word: "Bye! I'm never coming back here!" she trills and races out the door. It's the most satisfying moment in the entire two-part show.
Also airing:
The Jungle Room and The Ocean Room (Monday through Friday, 6:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m. on TVO). Now here are two excellent series that follow real kids in a real daycare/classroom setting. The Jungle Room, and it's successor The Ocean Room, capture the genuine emotion, hilarity and frustration that occur in a classroom of four- and five-year-olds. And no one is edited into a monster.