That’s right. May as well name these new “reality” shows for what they are. The Real World was one thing, it had a whole soap opera-y almost-a-plot thing going on there. Shows like Survivor and The Mole also have some sort of point to them since there is a goal and people at some point have to use their wits and brains. I’m personally going to be taping the upcoming Murder in Small Town X, which looks like a reality show based on an Agatha Christie story where the contestants have to <gasp> think to solve the mystery.
I’m talking about the crap like Fear Factor and SpyTV, where as near as I can determine, it’s all about who can stand the biggest humiliation or gross out. Oh, yeah, I want to tune in and see a person get covered in rats and worms and maggots and lark’s vomit. That’s entertainment! Or how about you TV people air a really funny practical joke where you fake a bank heist and hold a gun to a man’s head for SpyTV till he wets himself. That’s the kind of realism I find fascinating.
I understand there’s a certain demand for this or else so many people wouldn’t tune in, but come on, TV execs (the real focus of my rant and sorry for taking me so long to get here)! I just read in an Entertainment Weekly that you’re planning MORE of this garbage because currently these shows are bringing in such high ratings. Did you ever stop to think that this stuff is bringing in high ratings because it’s summer and everything else is in fucking reruns?!
A hungry person will eat any crap that served up to eat, and right now, this is all you’re serving. Don’t offer me a plate of steaming shit and tell me I like it when you don’t offer anything else. Meanwhile cable shows like The Sopranos are kicking your network asses. What does that tell you? That people enjoy quality.
So stop telling me what I like and get to work on something creative. I know, it’s taboo to ask for creativity and quality from the networks anymore, but occasionally you guys fuck up and let something good slip in there. I realize a quality show would involve a budget and real paid proffesional actors and real paid professional writers and sets and sound equipment, but look what can be accomplished when those things click.
But stop force feeding me crap and then exclaiming how much we like it because we always eat it.
I feel better now. Too bad this rant will accomplish jack shit though.
What I always wondered is, how do these shows handle the unexpected? For instance, what if, after they told they guy who had a gun held to his head about the joke and then he went nuts and beat up the camera crew? Do you think they would air that? If they did, I’d definitely watch.
I think the best reaction we have to these shows is to refuse to watch them, and teach our children to do the same. Cultural idiocy thrives on attention, even the negative kind.
I suspect, though I have no proff, that there have been plenty of “reality shows” that were filmed but never shown, and that this is just part of the overall cost. I figure that it has less to do with ones that are too violent than with ones that are simply conflict-less. For instance, had the people in the up-comming “Murder in Small Town X” been too stupid to figure anything out and had just wandered around for a few days making small talk, well then, we just never would have heard about it.
You know, one of our Comedic Geniuses ought to write a script of a bunch of Dopers cast into a reality TV show. You know, where they have carefully picked a bunch of people for thier wildely opposing veiwpoints, only to watch as the show degenerates into reasoned discourse, witty repartee, and mutual respect. The one “sure thing” ringer inserted in, guarenteed to cause conflict (a la jally or something) is efficently sliced to tears and then ignored.
Then, of course, every subsequent episiode would consist of a long, wordy debate about why whichever player was removed was removed, what other choices exisited, if it was the best of all possible choices, if there were subtle unseen motivations involved, and how the sam basic premise would play out if this were Libertania.
Obviously you never caught the original “Big Brother” on CBS. I’d say it was like watching a train wreck, but it was really more like watching people talk about what if perhaps some day there was a train wreck. For those of us who are aficinados of unintentionally bad television, it was truly a high-water mark. And it was on six nights a week to boot.
Of course, for a lot of these shows it’s all in the fly-by-night editing. Consider the Real World. They lived together for several months. This was boiled down to a half hour a week for 22 episodes.
The most interesting ones were where cast members went between different hair styles in a single episode.
Actually television can’t force feed anything. If you’re eating the crap it is because you want it. Don’t feel bad I had quite a crap habit called Voyager.
So I work at a TV station overnight. We have cameras all over town, and instead of going off the air we throw the picture up from one of the cameras. Most of the time we pull back on the shot so it’s a skyline, but occasionally we leave it with a tight shot of a street.
Then odd things ensue.
The strange, deranged, and generally drunk late night folks set up their VCRs, and flock to the streets. I have two favourites.
The naked guy wearing the cape. He was doing somersaults and cartwheels for about 20 minutes. Then ran like hell when the cops showed up.
The dance routine. Several cars pulled up, a bunch of teenagers jumped out, and proceeded to run through the opening sequence of Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery.
“Rupert Murdoch is the only one doing the programming! People want television shows and in the absence of genuine TV, they’ll watch to anyone who steps up to the camera. They want TV. They’re so thirsty for it they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.”
“We’ve had programs that were beloved, whose actors couldn’t find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don’t drink the sand because they’re thirsty. They drink the sand because they don’t know the difference.”
I love it. Our local cable access station has one camera mounted atop their building, pointing down to the street. I’ve heard of people running down to wave and stuff, but things on the level you’re describing? Wish I saw more of that.
I’m waiting for Running Man. The hell with people eating
maggots. I want a show where the host drives around and offers people money to do truly shocking things
“Now Bob, I’ll give you 1 million dollars to have sex with this goat!”
“All right, I’ll give you the million and a year’s supply of Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat!” *
“Okay, Bob! I’ll go for it!”
I think you get the idea
On a serious note- Aren’t the many eating challenges discriminatory? No observant Jew or Muslim will eat pork. Jews, and certain sects of Buddhists and Hindus(whose doctrine forbids eating meat) would also have religous objections to eating maggots. So do they reject any Rabbis applying for Survivor? Would an alternative kosher challenge be devised? Certain of my Mother’s dishes, for instance, would likely lose a blind taste test against maggots.
This is not meant as an insult to Frisco or its inhabitants. It’s just that Rice-A-Roni seems to be given away on every game show ever made.
There was an episode of Real World/Road Rules Challenge (shut up–yes, I watched it) and they were at some county fair and one of the challenges was to bob for pigs’ feet in this tank of water and the bigtittybitch from Real World refused to do it because she said she was Jewish. But earlier that day, she was eating sausage at breakfast. And then commented, on camera, about the sausage she ate at brreakfast, but it probably was a moot point because she ended up doing it, I think, because her teammates were pressuring her to do it, and turning into the world’s biggest martyr about it, and all the time, I was like, “Damn you, Bigtittybitch–using your religion only when it’s convienent for you to do so. . . that’s low.” And then I decided to stop watching the show.
What I don’t get is why they keep coming back to eating bugs and worms, when there are soooo many other disgusting things they could be making them eat. Like, fr’instance, how about eating a booger out of the nose of the contestant to your left? Now THAT’S a challenge!
I think it would be more appropriate if [this post] bore a big red label, “WARNING: LARK’S VOMIT!”
It is quite jarring to catch a rerun or compilation of old Candid Camera clips. Really, really funny, good natured, no one was made to look like an ass, and all one had to say was “Smile, you’r -” and the people knew what was up. Makes SpyTv look like crust on Alan’s Funthole. I hate humiliation TV.
Watching people humiliate themselves, is the only thingg - in my opinion - that makes these shows even remotely bearable. Did you see that assmunch Justin on Big Brother 2? YEEAASSHHH
