Invitation? It’s more like a demand.
The people who put out shows like these don’t do it to help other people.
Sure they do - the directors, producers, network execs, advertisers - they help alot of people - generally at the expense of the ones they ‘claim’ to be helping.
Wow, we’re a jaded and cynical lot. The cowardly and superstitious lot get Batman. We deserve, I dunno… Super-Jesus or something.
Oh, the violent and immoral things I have done! I yearn to be welcomed back into the warm bosom of my long-lost innocent family. I dream of having my sordid past re-hashed every week on national television!
Unfortunately, I live well outside of the NY/NJ/CT Tri-state area so I guess it’s suicide for me.
When was the last time you watched TruTV?
I think a show about people who want to be estranged from their family but are not would be more entertaining. And in some weird way more appropriate for SDMB.
Atheists and how they deal with their overly lovey dovey* religious families - or how I learned to hide my reality and NOT be convicted of felonies.
*cousins be damned.
I want to see John Edward bringing messages from dead relatives who hated their children: “I’m getting something from…Tom? Terry? Tim?”
“My dad’s name was Tim.”
“Tim says he’s glad his car got hit by that truck so he didn’t have to spend another dreary dinner at your house with your idiot husband and ugly bratty kids. He was only going that night to tell you he cut you out of his will and was leaving everything to a Jamaican prostitute who serviced him on his last vacation when your mother was out buying more of those stupid snowglobes. Who the fuck buys a snowglobe in Jamaica, anyway? Morons. My life was overrun by morons.”
I can’t recall ever doing so.
I’d love to help if I can find the time. You see, my new job’s a hassle and the kids have the flu, but it’s been sure nice talking to you.
I wonder why the SDMB looks like prime fishing grounds for this kind of life story. Where else is this posted?
In all fairness, there are more than a few threads about cutting off ties with family. A person can’t reconsile unless there’s already been a cutoff.
Perhaps we seem like the type of people that families would estrange themselves from?
Well, yeah. This just reminds me of all the local medical school studies of alcoholism treatment medications and programs, who advertise for participants on sports talk radio.
Don’t worry; if your Tri-State Doper compatriots come up with lurid enough stories to make this show a hit, the series will hit the road for subsequent seasons. Just hang on until they reach your area. 
That was what I was thinking too, and I feel a bit insulted.
Also, the shows premise is almost an open invitation to sociopaths to force some more resources out of relatives who probably knew what they were doing when they cut ties.
A wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Yep, that’s us.
To paraphrase reality TV icon Lance Loud:
We are big! It’s the message boards that got small!
Sounds like a remake of Jerry Springer. Totally boring. Doomed to fail I bet.
A BIG +1 there.
How about if I’m on the lam from a series of parking tickets?