Reposted because I’m still curious as to how far the studio can go, even with signed releases, without getting into trouble legally.
We’ve already seen personal threats and physical altercations. You don’t often see one cast member put another in a non-ironic choke hold and stay in the show.
I love how downtrodden and meek the contractor guy has been ever since he was put on probation. That shit clearly works!
Or is he simply endemic?
I like to think that deep down he’s a decent guy and was absolutely appalled at his own behavior.
Ha ha ha ha 
This show is so difficult to watch . It isn’t even bad enough to be good…my husband likes it though.
I think it will last at least until May, if for no other reason that Fox wants a return on its investment. Most of the money went into building the compound, so it’s not as if they’re going to save that much by cancelling the show. However, I do expect the Tuesday night episodes to end sooner rather than later, and have the show on just once a night, most likely Friday nights at 9:00 Eastern. (Sunday is also a possibility once football season ends, but I have a feeling Fox wouldn’t be comfortable airing it in the 7-8 time slot, and airing it in the 9-10 slot means moving Family Guy, and I can’t remember what happened to FG’s ratings the last time it moved (to make room for Cosmos).)
According to this, it is indeed the Dan Piraro who draws “Bizarro.” All we need now is to have a slice of pie, K[sup]2[/sup], and an upside-down bird (does the dead chicken count?) hidden in each episode.
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Oh, know a Bella. That shit is real, sorta, as much as she lies to herself. I’ve posted about my Bella and her attention whoring/dysfunctional behavior. The Bella I know latest contribution is she was roofie date raped by her ex husband, the trucker. But she’s got her chi back, and you can read all about it in her new book.
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When I watched this show, it was amazing how many of the cast reminded me of people I know. The contractor reminded me of Douchebag, the one I chronicled in the crazy employee thread a couple years back with the chicken coop, and the setting shoes on fire
.I missed it last night, and it’s going to be really hard for me to catch it as it airs, darnit.
If you ever wonder what my life is like, all these types of people are either clients, subs, employees, or distant relatives. Come to think of it, one of my past clients was on a kitchen reality show.
No wonder I want to become a hermit.
This is a pretty big deal with Big Brother, too. A season is normally 30-40 bucks or around $14.99/mo and a lot of people buy. I used to make a decent seasonal side-income selling their feed subscriptions on a reality tv blog. I still do, but they changed companies and cut the commissions a lot.
Came for the Todd Rundgren talk…I’ll just see myself out.
If these douchebags start letting their animals die because they’re too lazy to take care of them, I don’t know how I’ll avoid a meltdown on Fox’s asses.
OK, this show is just flat out boring. I gave up on it partway into tonight’s episode. That’s probably a lot longer than most people gave it.
Interesting idea, horribly executed.
I was really digging the show and looking forward to tonight’s episode, but I ended up being forced to FFWD through probably half of tonight’s episode due to intolerable douche chills. Josh’s pathetic attempt to hit on the doctor, the embarrassing “party” scene (not the first of those I’ve FFWDed through), the humiliating business venture, the overpowering “what the fuck did you expect?!” reaction I had to Red missing his wife…so much fail.
In the missing wife scene between Red and Hex, what really struck me was the microphone wire on Hex’s back. So… are there people wired all the time? Or did she get wired up special because she said she was going to try to get Red to open up? Or, even worse, did some production person suggest to her that she ought to have that conversation?
I mean, obviously they have cameras everywhere, no doubt with microphones, and other camera men roaming about – but somehow that seems less fake to me than wiring up particular people when they hope to elicit specially ‘emotional’ responses.
And I agree, it was boring. I tuned in about ten minutes late – what was wrong with the preacher? I just heard that he was leaving for surgery.
I’m assuming it’s like Big Brother:
- All cast members wear mic packs at all times, and get yelled at by production if they don’t put it back on promptly after bathing or whatever.
- There are no cameramen, only fixed location cameras.
Have we ever seen a moving shot? I don’t think we have. Panning, scanning, zooming, sure, but never a shot where the camera has physically moved its location.
I’m about 3/4 of the way through the first episode and they’re pretty much constantly wired.
I just finished the pilot. I dunno, I think some of you guys are being too harsh on it. I don’t usually do reality shows, but I actually kind of like this one. It’s a good premise and while they obviously got the most stringent, confrontational jerkwads it’s not all bad. There’s really only a couple of powder kegs so far. I also have a total TV crush on Hex, but I think that’s because she’s preternaturally reasonable compared to the others so far.
The pastor dude and the cook (sans that one outburst at Red) also seem really levelheaded. I haven’t really seen enough of the lawyer, the veterinarian, the yoga woman, or the poly chick to make and judgments on them yet, though.
That survivalist woman definitely is a piece of work, but she seems like a mostly harmless piece of work.
I’m a bit worried about the libertarian guy, admittedly, though he hasn’t really done anything wrong yet.
Those guys really need to charter some sort of rudimentary legal system, though. Nothing fancy, just simple things like “the punishment for x (which we all agree is heinous) is y, period.”
Awful. I’ve watched through the first 3 episodes (I think there was a new one last night I haven’t watched yet though). It’s all so contrived and non-genuine. The people are just horrible. Every single one. Like I said earlier they must be obligated not to venture out away from the barn because not a single person or group of people have left the area to explore the surrounding terrain. That’s not normal. And “Hex” or whatever her name is, wasn’t her claim to fame that she’s a Katniss wannabe so she brought her bow? Didn’t red bring one too? Why? No one has made any effort whatsoever to hunt anything or live off the land in any way other than the chicken tractor chick. The baptism was dumb as shit and I’ve no doubt the producers contrived the whole “Dave wants to come back” thing because he’s the most unstable character in the show. That dude has legit mental issues and will probably be back in prison before he gets his first paycheck from Utopia. He seriously has a career ahead of him as a patron of Hardcore Pawn. No one on the show is actually using their “skillset” or whatever, other than Sexual Assaulter and Chicken Tractor.
Oh, also, as an aside, how about that horrible theme song? Holy hell it sounds like it was lifted from 1992. They actually say the name of the show in the theme song. “This is UUTTTOOPPIIAAA” da da da da dum.
I think you guys are a little harsh too, but maybe because I saw the first 3 episodes together instead of just the one?
It’s still a shitty show. It would be much better if it was 15 lunatic survivalists, even if they were all hot-headed and fought each other. At least they’d be doing some survivalist stuff and creating a community. Or several communities.
This really just seems like 15 dickheads on a camping trip. No one is going to last a year. What is their incentive? They will try to hook up with each other and when they’re bored of it, they’ll go home. At least on Survivor you have the incentive to win money.
Re: hunting - I checked out their web site and in the FAQ there is a bit about hunting. Even though it’s “utopia” it’s still in California so in order to hunt you need a California hunting license and have to stick to the rules of the season. Their hunting area is “off screen.” And it’s closely monitored by the CA Fish & Wildlife people.
What’s the deal with wanting to pay $600+ to get gas hooked up for a stove? They lived a week without a stove - why not return their stove for an electric model, and work on how they are going to heat the place in the winter?
For however flaky and weird Bella is, people do need to stfu and stop fighting her on the gardening stuff. No one else has stepped up and said “I do a lot of gardening/farming and I think your methods are off, let me show you mine.” They are all just like “omg Bella you are weird and I don’t want to be a part of your weird garden!” Yeah she sucks at being a manager and kind of just sucks all around, but when the only person in the whole group who knows how to manage a garden sucks, you just deal with it and get to growing food.
These people do way too much loafing. Damn.
Some observations from episode 4.
Bella is absolutely insane. Steer. Clear. Utopians.
The pastor seemed like he was pretty decent.
Red is one of the most unfortunate looking dudes in reality TV show history.
Hex is completely worthless. She walks around doing nothing with her ass crack blurred out all the time.
Bella is a world-class control freak. That scene where Red picked up the seed packets and was shuffling through them and she had to immediate start ordering him to put them down. Why, for heaven’s sake? He was not harming the packets in any way, and had as much a right to look at them as you do. Besides, if they were just lying on the ground you obviously weren’t in need of them at that Very Instant. Sheesh.