8 Kids and Lonely: 'Kate Plus 8' Premieres on TLC

Sunday night on TLC, reality mom Kate Gosselin's new series, Kate Plus 8, premiered. And while it attempted to show that Kate and her 8 kids are doing just fine since her divorce from husband Jon, the whole show seemed... well, kinda sad to me.

Kate has a new glam look, complete with long hair (no more reverse mullet), spray-tanned bod and sexy outfits with super high heels. She also has a new disorder- low blood sugar- which fans are hearing her mention about for the first time (and we thought it was Jon who caused her strange mood swings!).

Kate's couch interview segments were the weirdest, without Jon by her side to banter with. And the 8 Gosselin kids' reunion with their beloved cameraman and production team (???) was slightly bizarre. It was as if Gosselin really wanted fans to see how much her kids love being filmed (she kept the film crew's return a secret from the kids, so the reunion could be captured on film).

The kids were ridiculously overjoyed to have the cameras comeback into their home, ecstatically cheering and greeting the crew members Jeff and "Stinky" like they were long lost family members. One of the sextuplets rushed the cameraman down into the basement, cheering, "The dance floor is gone because mommy got eliminated!", while 6 year old Aaden declared, "Everything is back to normal!" The kid was referring to Kate's ousting from the ABC's Dancing With the Stars, but he was clearly glad to have some normalcy- no dance floor and the camera crew back- in his life.

But is it normal? The effects of the Gosselin's divorce on the kids wasn't all that apparent in the premiere episode (last season's final episodes were more painful to watch, where the kids were clearly missing their dad), although Kate did go solo to take the kids to Orlando for the sextuplets 6^th birthday.

But Mady Gosselin, the family's 9 year old drama queen did have a few choice works for her mother. Mady apparently had a problem with the sextuplets having three- count 'em three! - birthday celebrations this year. Kate calmly tried to explain that the sextuplets came early, so they were entitled to partying all week, but Mad didn't buy it.

I will give Gosselin credit for how she disciplines her kids as a single parent. When 9 year old Cara called one of the other kids a "loser" Kate firmly told her to walk away and dismissed her from the family's orange juice squeezing contest.

But seeing Kate at Florida's Discovery Cove, swimming with the dolphins and her kids, I felt sorry for her. While she puts on a good front- and she has plenty of kids, cameramen and production crew around- she seems to have few friends and little or no extended family members in her life.

For someone who has 8 kids, Kate Gosselin seems very lonely to me.

Kate Plus 8 airs on Sunday nights on TLC.

Sources: Kate Plus 8, June 6, 2010, TLC