Take Bear Grylls, for instance.
Why is he?
Why is his show still on television in New Zealand when he had the poor judgement some years back to come here and eat our weta?
Faithful readers will remember his 2011 trip to this country for his Man vs Wild show, when he committed that terrible faux pas, and we are happy to report his latest offering, Bear Grylls: Mission Survive, which we have refused to watch on principle, will finish tonight on TV One.
Not only that, it will make way for something local and scientific and worthy and without doubt fascinatingly interesting.
Yes, the season finale of Grylls' show (in which the final three contestants fight it out to be crowned mission survivor, but with the end in sight, there is one final challenge in store - I know, right? Who watches this stuff?) ends tonight, and makes way for what will be most definitely the most remarkable and excellent Why Am I? - The Science of Us, which looks at the fabulous Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit longitudinal study into 1037 babies born in 1972.
In that year the University of Otago Medical School embarked on a project described as the ultimate nature/nurture test, following each person born in the city of Dunedin between April 1972 and March 1973.
They haven't followed them for just a week or two, either. They've done it for their entire lives.
The four-part special will begin at 9.30pm next Tuesday on TV One, and is available for advance preview on TVNZ OnDemand now.
The show will follow the study of the participants over more than four decades, as every aspect of their health and development was monitored from their genes to their growth, their physical wellbeing, psychology, emotional ups and downs, criminal convictions, successes and failures.
I, for one, am expecting some definitive answers about life, the universe and everything.
Meanwhile, speaking of being human, why is it we get drawn into television programmes about human misery at its most extreme?
I know I do.
The amusingly named Happy Valley is a very-much-less-than-cheerful show that featured issues including alcoholism, heroin addiction, rape, family break-up, suicide and police work.
The good news is the Bafta award-winning drama starring Sergeant Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) is back, despite Sgt Cawood's evil arch-nemesis Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton), serving a life sentence in a high-security prison.
Happy Valley, TVOne on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week at 8.30pm, will feature a spate of murders and a gruesome discovery.
Enjoy, weird humans.
- by Charles Loughrey
