Call it an occupational hazard. When Kasey Kahl of Clovis briefly flared to a few seconds of national fame on ABC's "The Bachelorette," I started watching the show every week so I could dutifully comment on the local angle.

Now I'm sorta hooked.

Even though Kasey got bounced from the show last month in a spectacular crash-and-burn downfall that culminated in his getting left on a glacier -- who could forget his disconsolate form standing there as the helicopter zoomed off, left in our imaginations to tromp home on frozen feet through a couple hundred miles of snow? -- I've been tuning in to the Monday night series ever since.

The show isn't as kooky without Kasey around, of course. He was a gold mine of eccentricities, what with his impulsive decision to get a tattoo, distracting tendency to mumble when he got nervous and eye-rolling fondness for singing on his dates. For a short time, he outshined the mostly monolithic lineup of tweezed, souped-up, bland hunks competing for the attentions of bachelorette Ali Fedotowsky.

I admit: I had fun poking fun at Kasey, whether it was joking about the Icelandic authorities tossing him in a (freezing) padded room or ribbing him for his incessant use of the word "heart." (Drinking game, anyone?) You haven't quite lived as journalist, I suppose, until you've had a reality-TV-show participant challenge you to a cage match, as Kasey did with me on a local podcast. (It was all in good fun, it turns out, and he wrote me a very nice e-mail declaring a truce.)

But even without Clovis' finest topping the Odd-O-Meter on a weekly basis, I've continued watching "The Bachelorette." Why? Sometimes dorky TV shows just get under your skin.

Yes, I realize that it's an appalling premise for a series, and the idea you'd be able to find a spouse while romping through a contrived reality show is silly.

But the producers have skillfully set Ali up as a warm-hearted, if easily emotionally bruised, character who just has the darndest luck.

Think of the traumas she has to endure in the midst of being whisked from one world-class vacation resort to the next! One of the 25 guys vying for her attention had, shockingly, a girlfriend on the side. (Does she really think that out of more than two dozen single guys, all of them are unequivocally unattached?)

You can imagine the producers plotting out all the potential pitfalls to Ali's future happiness: "We need at least two of the guys to be sleazeballs, and then we'll wait to leak that news till late in the show, when we can be sure of some tears."

There are times on the show when Ali really seems heartfelt -- such as last week's episode, in which she had to winnow her four suitors to three by saying goodbye to Kirk, whose bio included fighting back from a mysterious disease. (See where mysterious diseases get you: almost into the finals!) She seemed genuinely distressed at having to make the choice.

The current raging topic in the tabloids has to do with one of the three final contestants, the warm and witty Frank Neuschaefer, with whom Ali seems to have the strongest emotional connection. For weeks the show itself has been teasing scenes from Monday's upcoming episode in which we learn, presumably, that Frank has a deep secret to share. Tabloids in recent days have published photos of him -- another shock, sorry -- kissing another woman.

Poor, poor Ali.

Then again, come on. She knew what she was getting into.

Reality TV is its own self-contained universe, with its own laws of nature, bearing little resemblance to so-called real life. You're never going to hear a genuine conversation between two Kardashian sisters on TV, stuck as they are in a spectacularly self-aware zone with lights and cameras.

We might think we're watching reality, but that's about as far as the word ever goes.

With "The Bachelorette" franchise, however, there are strange times when the artifice and the reality almost do seem to intersect. An example from the last show: when Ali met the families of the top four contestants. Suddenly, it was as if completely innocent people had been dragged into the process: folks who cared deeply about their sons. While those family members were obviously aware of the cameras and willing to "play the game," there was a wisp of honesty in the air, and I, the viewer-as-voyeur, felt as if I'd stumbled upon a "real" moment.

The result: I got sucked in. Yes, to "The Bachelorette." Thanks a lot, Kasey from Clovis. I don't have any illusions that Ali is truly going to find the husband of her dreams at the show's conclusion. But it's still a guilty-pleasure good time.