The video above shows McCready suffering from a seizure on camera (her season aired in early 2010). She seized in front of her roommate, Mackenzie Phillips (heroin addict and former child star), who thought she was making a joke, and laughed until she realized what was happening, then got help. That the person who recorded this scene off his television and uploaded it to YouTube, however, thought it was hilarious because of the seizure, strikes me as the terrible problem endemic to Celebrity Rehab. If you watched the show as a serious documentary, it had a lot to offer, and was unsparing and often moving. If you watched it as a hilarious spectacle, then — well, it's hard to figure out how to end this sentence, because I think you're awful. But reality TV sends these things out into the world, and there's no controlling what a viewer's reaction is going to be. It doesn't help that Dr. Drew has sometimes seemed like a fame addict himself.

Five deaths out of 43 people, even within a group of hardcore addicts that the show cast, seems like a lot. McCready won't be the last, either: A list of the 43 cast members over five seasons features a number of people who continue to appear in TMZ headlines for drug-related messes. Celebrity Rehab aired its last season in spring 2011, but it is clear that it will haunt Dr. Drew and VH1 for years to come.