I'm not one for much TV. I prefer to watch DVDs, as many of the shows I do want to watch aren't shown anymore, or aren't available in Australia. Or are on at stupid hours and with the DVDs I don't have to watch ads and I can re watch them to my heart's delight.
What I hate about TV though, is the disturbing appearance of so many reality shows. No, I don't watch them. Yet I still hear about them, they're in all of our magazines and advertising, in the DVD racks at video stores and flowing out on word of mouth. Everywhere!! Why?! I thought the whole point was that ordinary TV shows are boring and fake, so someone decided to make it all REAL.
Here's a fun fact - you want to make a good reality show stand out, you better have damn super powers to make it interesting!
So, sometimes I see glimpses of reality shows on TV. Once I watched a whole episode of something called 'Four Weddings' because it featured a medieval style ceremony. The whole premise was that these four women get to hand around each other's weddings, vote on them and the winner gets to have an awesome honeymoon somewhere.
Would it really be worth it, having all these dorks in the photos and memories of what's supposed to be the happiest day of your life? I don't think so. It would have been interesting, except it was so easily riggable. One of the women - Sothy - gave the other girls terrible scores in comparison to the more reasonable votes of the other competitors and naturally, she won.
It wasn't the bitchy bridezilla fest one would imagine but it was full of little tiresome complaints about stupid things and everyone naturally thought theirs was the best. One thing I noticed was that they all complained about how long the speeches are. What? YOUR speeches were too long. It's actually written in Gospel that if you have a wedding at any stage in your life, there will always be a annoying, long speech or two!
(Gospel also mentions the drunk relatives, but we try to keep that quiet so you can at least imagine something like a fairytale. )
More recently I watched a Master chef Australia episode while I was waiting for someone to hurry their butt up. They went to a mine, and they're all just standing around in this mine, then the judges give them the shock of their life... they have to COOK for ALL the miners!
The looks on their faces.... Would anyone else like to play poker with these guys? I know I would and I don't even play poker.
I mean, what did they think they were going all the way out there for? A farmer's market?!
I saw the first ten minutes of a Gordon Ramsey show the other night because my partner fell asleep on me and remote was juuuuuust out of reach but that was kind of interesting. He was trying to help out some American diner that didn't even have a chef and was going deep into depression. I kind of would have liked to see where that went.
It just amused me how the married couple who owned it turned around at the meeting and said 'It was him! It's all his fault!' and the business manager. Well... why didn't you mention this to him earlier? Seems like if you knew what was wrong, you could have worked on it a teeny bit and maybe saved an intervention.
I guess this rant is kind of set off by my nemesis, FaceBook! Some idiot co-worker actually signed a petition to bring back Big Brother. Bring back... are you kidding me? That show almost killed television! The only good thing about it was that it probably inspired Drawn Together!!
I'm glad I haven't seen Kim Kardishan's show - my head would probably explode. I couldn't even sit through that stupid Gene Simmon's Family Jewel's crap. That episode.. if they'd just sat in the chairs and made funny comments it would have been alright. Voldemort would still be vanquished. So of course, the plastic surgery twins have to go off and get a pedicure.. something happens off screen and then there's yelling that some one's toe is broken.. somehow.. a lot of hobbling and then Gene buys the business out, kicks all the Asians out and makes it into a tacky 'Get Nailed' nail salon.
Something tells me that the Asians would have been given money or something, and I really hope so. Something else tells me that this didn't just happen in their lives, they decided to make it happen so they could make an episode around it. That's not reality, that's a lazy TV show that saves money on scripts and ups the budget on vanity and fourth wall breakages.
Cue the 'outrage' of the wives while Gene parades 'hot' girls around. I enjoyed the bit where they make one of the girls - not a nail technician - manicure one of the guys.. and hopefully maim that cuticle for the rest of his life. Not so good for her, but I'm sure they made her do it anyway.
I'm not even going to get into Wherever's got Talent, Somewhere's Idol, Dancing with the Somethings, Something Chefs, Somewhere's Next Top Idiot, or what have you. We'll just be here all day and no one will leave happy.
However, I will say this. Shows like the Biggest Loser that have an actual purpose - that's great! Just stop trying to make so much drama in them. Why can't they just lose weight instead of fighting each other? To the host.. stop drawing out your sentences and repeating yourself. You've just told that person that they're pretty much going to be eliminated, stop reminding them every ten seconds. If you think the viewers are that stupid, put something on the screen already.
I did like the Undercover Boss show.. but it annoyed me because it just seemed like they had to compensate everybody. I like that it changes the boss' perspectives and they can see what really goes on but really? If I turned up to a new workplace followed by a camera crew.. who is really going to buy the story that we're taking a look into entry level jobs? Who cares about that?
If the cameras are there, people are going to be on their best behaviour. Well, usually. This sort of show should be done with actual undercover cameras, but of course they can't. It bothers me that people are so open on this show. Yes, there are some true sob stories on this show and yes, they deserve recognition and a hand sometimes. That also means that everybody is going to come out with a tale of woe whether they have one or not because it means money.
I know I wouldn't get anything, I don't trust people who try and get my life story in the first five minutes haha. Make it up, it's more fun. It was good to have a look at the companies though, the American theme park ones were great, I find that stuff fascinating. The entry level jobs can be really demanding and most people don't recognise that, so when it's shown like this, hooray!
I don't think I would ever go on any kind of reality show. You'd have to be very desperate to go on a reality dating show, especially if you were the 'prize catch'.
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