Inland Valley on TV: January 2012 Archives

ABC's "Celebrity Wife Swap" isn't my typical TV viewing (my typical TV viewing is to leave the set off) but Tuesday's episode involved Ontario, so why not?

Former child actress Tina Yothers, who played Jennifer Keaton on "Family Ties," lives in south Ontario. She swapped households with actress Niecy Nash of "Reno 911," "Dancing With the Stars" and "Clean House," who lives in Northridge.

I'd never heard of either of them or watched either series, so some of the voyeur factor was lost on me. Anyway, the alleged "country" aspects of Ontario (!) are played up, and life in similarly suburban Northridge is presented as glamorous.

Nash thinks she's a diva, Yothers thinks she's normal, and hijinx ensue. Somehow, though, Nash comes off as a better mother. She's more open-minded than Yothers, willing to take a different approach to parenting based on Yothers' suggestions, whereas Yothers didn't want to hear it about her own kids. Kind of interesting.

If you've got 43 minutes to kill, you can watch the episode here.

Photo: Jason Merritt/FilmMagic