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(Taken From My Official Newsletter, Issue 36,
January 2005)
I hate reality TV. I thought it would have burnt out by now
the way the big money game shows have. Does anyone remember
the game show GREED?
Like an unpleasant relative at a family reunion, these shows
have hung around a lot longer than anyone would have liked.
What I don’t like about these shows is that they aren’t
reality. And by this I don’t mean I’m accusing them
of rigging shows. No, I mean the premises are fake. How many
people do you know that get stranded on a deserted island,
are confined to a house unable to leave and watched by cameras
24hrs a day, or that swap their wife for a month?
SURVIVOR led the way and is the show
I hate most. The show is designed to demonstrate the worst
in people. It’s an
individual event, not a team one, where ultimately, everyone
will stab a teammate or "a friend" in the back. I
cannot believe at the end of every show, someone bleats on
about how they were screwed over by someone they thought was
their friend. I don’t get any pleasure from watching people,
regardless of background, sacrifice their morals, honor, belief
system and ethics to screw over 16 strangers for a large cash
payment. It’s hardly the human race at its finest hour.
Obviously, there have been the clones:
BIG BROTHER, TEMPTATION ISLAND, WHO WANTS TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE,
THE BACHELOR, THE BACHELORETTE, THE APPRENTICE, EDEN and
the list goes on. Actually, the show EDEN was touted to run
indefinitely, but it only lasted a few weeks. When they canned
the show, do you think they told the participants? Are they
still playing up to the cameras that aren’t there?
There is a nasty side effect from
these shows too—the
participants themselves. For some bizarre reason, a lot of
them believe appearing on a game show—let’s not forget
that reality TV for all its glitz is a game show—entitles
them to a subsequent career in entertainment. Why? How many
other game show contestants in the history of game shows thought
they were entitled to some sort of career off the back of their
appearance?
Half the contestants from the first
season of SURVIVOR pursued TV or film related careers. Inaugural
SURVIVOR winner, Richard Hatch, demanded to take over as
host of SURVIVOR and screen-tested to host THE WEAKEST LINK.
Currently, if you’re in Vegas,
you may want to drop by the Reality TV Girls Revue. It’s
a burlesque kind of an affair featuring the some of the castoffs
from SURVIVOR, TEMPTATION ISLAND, THE BACHELOR, and BIG BROTHER.
It even features one of the SURVIVOR champions.
The problem is that this kind of fame wanes so quickly, especially
with the seemingly exponential proliferation of these shows.
Just try and name the castaways for any season then try and
match which island getaway these people were on. Can you name
which girls went with which bachelor? Very quickly these people
blur into the nameless.
My problem with reality TV is that
it’s killing the art
of story telling. Reality TV is squeezing out good fictional
TV shows. Excluding CSI and LAW AND ORDER (and its spin-offs)
from the equation, there is very little room for original programming.
So I urge everyone to stop watching reality TV.
If you don’t, I will deploy my
doomsday devices. These are my reality TV shows that I will
detonate on your screens. For a taste, here are a couple
of shows I have locked and loaded unless I see a rise in
cancellations.
1. CUPS — filmed on location
with the men and women of Victoria Secret. Each week, a camera
crew would visit a different store to see the peaks and troughs
that occur in the lingerie world.
2. PIMP MY BRIDE — Combining the pluses of the car makeover
show, PIMP MY RIDE and THE BACHELOR, Heidi Fleiss hosts this
show, where one lucky husband-to-be hands over his fiancé
to be tricked out for the ultimate slutty makeover.
You have been warned. Stop watching. Or else.
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