Image Credit: Michael Simon, Albert Ferreira/Startraks and Nick Saglimbeni

Tonight’s E! special Keeping Up with the Kardashians: Kim’s Fairytale Wedding: A Kardashian Event was an outrageously elongated affair — and I refer not just to the fact that merely saying its full title would occupy slow-talkers until Christmas 2017.

Despite its two hour length, this evening’s show did not actually cover the nuptials of Ms. Kardashian and NBA player Kris Humphries, who married way back in August. That will be taken care of in Monday’s companion special, Keeping Up with the Kardashians: Kim’s Fairytale Wedding: A Kardashian Event 2: Electric Boogaloo. This show was all about the build-up. Which Vera Wang wedding dress would Kim choose? Could she have real diamonds in her bouquet (remarkably, not a joke)?  Would she hire Robin Thicke or Christina Aguilera to perform on the big day (remarkably, also not a joke)? The result was two hours of wedding prep porn, which at least meant it was a step up from Kim’s accidental excursion in real porn.

Or maybe not. Say what you like about XXX movies but they rarely feature gruesome close-up footage of a woman having elective, jowls-tightening surgery. (Obviously Debbie Does Dallas and Then Has Elective, Jowls-Tightening Surgery is the exception which proves the rule here). But one of the show’s major plot strands found Kim fretting while her mother Kris went under the knife and whatever other terrifying tools were surgically utilized onscreen after I covered my eyes with my hands and tore out my ear drums with my toes.

Speaking of tools, the show’s running time allowed plenty of space to explore the not-all-that-relevant binge eating of Kim’s sibling Rob who (just in case there wasn’t quite enough conspicuous consumption on display) was seen wolfing down a vast amount of Mexican food with Christian Bale-in-American-Psycho lookalike Scott Disick. Meanwhile, Humphries was routinely railroaded over wedding plans by Kim and Kris and routinely bad mouthed by Kim’s sister Khloe, who was determined he sign a prenuptial agreement. Oh, yes. Humphries is a professional basketball player but it is his wife who is the rich one. That’s how much money the Kardashians have.

And they just keep on getting more of it. The newlyweds are rumored to have made a(nother) fortune from televising their wedding and in tonight’s show Khloe and her husband Lamar Odom discussed their then upcoming appearance in a commercial that was actually screened in the course of the episode’s many, many ad breaks. As it happens, another advert was for the new Johnny Depp movie The Rum Diary.  The film is adapted from a novel by Hunter S. Thompson who once described the TV business as “a cruel and shallow money trench.” In arguably related news, the second half of Kim’s Fairytale Wedding will be broadcast on Monday at 9 p.m. ET / 8 p.m. CT.

Did you watch tonight’s show? What did you think?

Read more:
‘Kim’s Fairytale Wedding’: 10 things you WON’T hear or see
Kim Kardashian renews her wedding vows on ‘Ellen,’ and it’s actually kinda sweet: Watch!
Kim Kardashian’s wedding registry
Snap judgment of Kim Kardashian’s wedding dress: Classic with a dash of crazy