Courtesy of HBO

“True Blood” airs HBO at 8 p.m. “True Blood” wraps up its fourth season on September 11.

Best Stupid ABC Reality Show: ABC summer schedules are known for their crazy reality TV, and this year was one of the best. There was “Expedition Impossible,” an “Amazing Race” clone that sometimes seemed more like “Survivor.” “Wipeout” returned in full form. In “Take The Money and Run,” two contestants had 48 hours to successfully hide a suitcase filled with $100,000 from local police. But “101 Ways to Leave a Game Show” wins this award. After answering a question incorrectly on this quiz show, contestants would be kicked off the show in a horrific way: tied to a bi-plane wing, exploded from a cannon, driven away on the top of a speeding 18-wheeler, etc. Fun times.

Best Show Whose Name Really Doesn’t Describe It: “Awkward,” MTV’s new high school dramedy, is anything but. It focuses on a normal, though fairly unpopular, high school girl named Jenna Hamilton. In the pilot, she gets into an accident that leaves her with the upper left part of her body in a cast. Okay, maybe that’s where the show gets its name.

TV Show That Will Make You Believe Reality TV Love Could Be Real: The gorgeous forests of Costa Rica provide the backdrop for “Love in the Wild” on NBC, perhaps the most boring TV show this summer. Single men and women matched up and participated in challenges together in the hopes of finding love, and a surprising number showed a real earnestness in their relationships for viewers long jaded by “The Bachelor.” Stupidest challenge of the season involved walking to a tree and walking back. No joke. The producers tried to manufacture some drama into the show by throwing unexpected twists and turns during elimination nights to no avail. Love overcomes all.

Best Role Model for Wash. U. Pre-Laws: “Suits” is a perfect fit for USA, a network long known for quirky characters. Mike Ross is on the run from cops after being set-up during a drug deal. He happens to run into an interview room being used by a top New York law firm. Mike’s photographic memory impresses hotshot lawyer Harvey Specter, who sees potential and a little bit of himself in the young Mike Ross and agrees to take him on, even though Mike has never attended law school. For a procedural law show, the show is incredibly character-driven. Watch it for the witty bromance and romance.

Best Creator of Craziness: The “Big Brother” house. Locking 14 semi-strangers in a house for three months with no contact with the outside world would be bad enough, but forcing them to vote each other off makes everyone even more paranoid. This season’s twist focused on bringing back three “dynamic duos” from seasons past. The veterans dominated the beginning of the season, but this changed when season-12 contestant Brendan got voted out. As a result, his fiancé, Rachel, had a breakdown so intense that it would only be understandable had he died. Sort of sad, but great TV.

Best Singing Competition: Sure, “The Voice” was fun, but it ended too early in summer to count as summer TV. Instead, this award goes to “Platinum Hit,” Bravo’s songwriter answer to “Top Chef.” The show never found an audience, but the contestants produced great songs, always in less than twelve hours. Not bad.

Best Amnesic Vampire: Okay, so the competition might be a little lacking in this category, but this award goes to Eric Northman from “True Blood.” His relationship with Sookie has certainly changed this season, but it has been quite fun to watch.

Best Lead-Up to the Fall TV Season: “The Nine Lives of Chloe King” on ABC Family is typical summer fare—easy-watching television to hold viewers over until more meaty sustenance in fall. Chloe King turns 16 and finds out that she is actually part of an ancient secret race of cat people, the Mai. Apparently, werewolves and vampires are being overused on TV. Chloe is the “Uniter,” someone who is going to save the world? That means as much to you as to me because we never find out why or how the Uniter is important. The show was pretty lackluster until the season finale, which actually rocked. Too bad it might not get another season. Stick with “The Vampire Diaries” in the fall.

Best Show in Our State: This award goes to “Truck Stop, Missouri,” a new Travel Channel docu-series about the Midway Truck Stop, located halfway between St. Louis and Kansas City on I-70. The truck stop is its own community, consisting of twelve businesses and many crazy customers. It’s a surprisingly good show about a place you’d never actually consider living in.

Anyway, what I’m trying to get at here is that if freedom is so obviously beneficial (Mel Gibson movies never lie), why do I feel like students at this university are not granted as much freedom as we deserve? Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems as though Wash. U. students rarely get the benefit of the doubt. This idea has been stewing in my brain for quite a while, and Eliza Adelson’s article on the alleged WUPD profiling certainly brought up an aspect of what I am talking about.

Colleges are historically liberal environments. Now, by no means am I suggesting a ’60s-esque return to overt public nudity and hallucinogen abuse. I simply feel that we, as students, are fairly monitored for people who are not only supposed to be treated like adults, but also “the future leaders” of this great country.

I happen to know a student who was stopped and questioned by a University City police officer simply for walking home too late. If this does not imply some sort of assumed guilt, or some belief that we as college students are degenerate thugs, then call me Mariah Carey, and I assure you, I am not Mariah Carey. I understand that our school has an extremely tenuous relationship with the off-campus community at the moment, but is this sort of hawkish patrol really necessary? I would suspect that pretty much all of our students are intelligent and good people, given that we were admitted to this university in the first place.

Humans as a species are fallible. We make mistakes, and this is not, in our particular case, just because we are young or in college. People make stupid decisions all the time. I understand that the school prides itself on its reputation and on its academics, and those are fantastic qualities—after all, they drew me to this school in the first place. However, as a result of the image that we have to uphold, I sometimes feel that the undergraduate student body is under a constant spotlight.

Simply because a student is able to excel both in academics and in extracurriculars does not mean that he or she is flawless. Nor is that person an incorrigible, disgusting creature. There is a delicate balance, and I sometimes feel that our administration expects a little too much out of us. If we make a mistake, it’s part of life. There doesn’t always have to be a slew of judicial processes to make us realize we were wrong. A little trust between the administration and the student body would go a long way. I hope this article doesn’t get me suspended.

Signing off,
The paranoid columnist

P.S. Big Brother is always watching.

Charlie is a sophomore in Arts & Sciences. He can be reached via e-mail at chlow@artsci.wustl.edu.