How many reality TV shows have you watched/kept tabs on?

[T Roosevelt]

My wife made the comment that I, having never watched ANY reality TV show, am pretty much by myself (minority of one). I don't accept that...

Treat the same series as one, regardless of season.

[billkurtmeyer]

1. Could it be that reality TV is a brean dead unthinking repub thing?

[lazarus]

4. No

Could it be that you're just blindly attacking a group of people because they like something you don't?

Here's why Reality TV is popular: It's new. It's unpredictable.

You watch CSI, you know Gil Grissom's going to be alive at the end of the episode. You watch Will and Grace, and you know what the punch line is going to be 30 seconds before Jack says it.

But Reality TV is new, every time. You never know what's going to happen.

And after 40 years of the same formulas being retread on television (honestly, how many variations can you get on a cop show or sitcom?) many people are looking for something new and interesting.

How many reality shows have you watched? Have you given the genre a chance?

Yeah, there's dreck (Littlest Groom, for example), but there are some very, very good shows out there. Survivor, Amazing Race, Big Brother, The Apprentice (from what I've heard, I haven't had time to watch it yet), The Benefactor. All unusual, all with their own twists and spins on the genre, and all at least as worthy of being a respected genre as sitcoms, cop dramas, or news magazines.

All genres have dreck at the bottom and quality at the top. Sturgeon's Law states that 90% of everything is crap. But the top shows in each genre are the ones that are worth watching. I'd never write off an entire genre like that.

[billkurtmeyer]

6. But it isn't real - far from it. And like anything else that is becomes

a fad they over do it until it becomes a joke. I repeat it isn't real, it is just an oxymoron, you have been duped. It isn't a gemre it is a fad, gone in a couple of years.

[lazarus]

8. It's not real in what way?

I've been duped in what way?

Do I honestly think that sixteen people just got abandoned on an island somewhere, and a camera crew happened to be there to catch it? Is Jeff Probst some sort of god that can make these people do challenges every three days, and kick someone off the island subsequently?

Do I think that thirteen people just happened to move into a house filled with cameras?

The "real" part of reality tv is the behaviour and reactions of the people participating. If you honestly think that 130 actors who had never been in anything before or since (for more than one or two) could participate in Survivor over the years and act out scripts, and this has never leaked, then you're far more duped than I am.

You're demonstrating an amazing misunderstanding of what "reality tv" really is. It's unscripted. That doesn't mean it's not edited. Everyone knows it's edited. But, at least in the good shows, nothing is faked or fixed. In shows like Survivor, a Standards and Practices team is on site, ensuring that nothing is done to violate the very strict rules governing game shows.

So if you have any evidence that this isn't "real", please, provide it.

It's at least as real as sports, which is just another form of reality TV.

[billkurtmeyer]

13. Sports isn't edited!

[lazarus]

18. Heh

So, the only way reality TV would be "real" is if there was a constant live feed?

Guess what they have for Big Brother?

[Union Thug]

2. I admit it.. I really do like the Amazing Race....

[mandyky]

3. Big Survivor fan and

have watched some seasons of Big Brother. I have watched a few episodes of Amazing Race, but nothing else.

No American Idol or Apprentice for me. No Fear Factor. Actually, most reality shows are just bullshit.

[St. Jarvitude]

5. Sorry everybody, but REALITY TV SUCKS!

I watch TV so I can take a break from reality. Watching a bunch of people suffer in agony or have to do brain-dead menial tasks for Donald Trump doesn't float my boat.

[billkurtmeyer]

7. Good for you - non sheep type!

[lazarus]

10. You do realise

that with this comment you're calling those of us who do like reality tv sheep, right?

There's a bunch of DUers who like Survivor and Amazing Race, for instance. You think I'm a sheep? Because that's what you're saying.

[billkurtmeyer]

14. Just pulling your chain - I have always considered my self a

non-conformist, I don't follow fads, does that make me better than you, NO - to each his own.

[lazarus]

20. I don't follow fads, either

Indeed, I was one of the close minded who dissed Survivor during Season One, because it was so popular.

Then a friend convinced me to try Season Two, and I realised what I was missing.

That's okay, though. I just get tired of the abuse heaped on Reality TV and its fans.

[lazarus]

9. No, you don't like it

It doesn't suck, it's not your cup of tea.

why do you feel the need to apologise if you're proud of your opinion, btw?

[St. Jarvitude]

11. It was a semi-bluff

Some reality TV is good. I'll contend that the first season of Survivor was amazing, but only because it was really the first show I can remember of that style. It was like a game show, only much much cooler.

There are so many terrible, terrible ripoff shows these days (read: The Benefactor) and just awful reality shows (read: Trading Spouses, which, hilariously enough, is exactly like a Chapelle's Show sketch which intended to parody reality TV) that the genre has jumped the shark, in my opinion.

[lazarus]

12. did you watch the Benefactor, btw?

I caught the first episode, thought it was hilarious.

"Jumping the shark" is such a tired concept. You do realise that it means a specific moment after which a show is no longer as good, right?

I don't see how it can apply to a genre, to be honest. Do bad sitcoms kill the sitcom genre? Do bad cop shows kill that drama?

Just started the ninth Survivor. It's still amazing, still like a game show, only much cooler. Just because something's done more than once doesn't mean it's bad.

:D

[Digit]

15. Can't stand Reality TV

[T Roosevelt]

16. I much prefer documentaries

[lazarus]

21. Which are also reality tv, in a way

A camera crew catches things that happen, then the footage is edited to tell a story from a certain perspective.

[GeorgeBushytail]

17. Joe Schmo grabbed me

Any body else get addicted to this?

It was a fake "reality" show in which all the contestants but one was an actor.

The guy at the center of it was just so nice it made the whole crazy show work.

I didn't see the second season.

[Maleficus]

19. Absolutely none.

I hate "reality" tv shows. They all annoy me.

[SarahB]

22. Zero

[Bride of Cthulhu]

23. just 1

the amazing race. it's the only one that is interesting.

[mark414]

24. that shit is so tired

lazy studios and idiot writers

putting real writers and real actors out of work

motherfuckers

[lazarus]

34. if the real writers

and real actors could come up with a gripping product, maybe the ratings wouldn't be so high for reality tv.

CSI has no problems maintaining good ratings.

[tjdee]

25. Flavor Flav romancing Bridgitte Nielson.... how can you miss THAT?

There are TOO MANY reality shows now---that's basically all MTV is, which is sad.... the last one up until this season I watched the whole way through is the second season of Real World some years back.

But, while flipping I happened to catch this season's Surreal Life on VH1, and it is quite interesting.

Just because I never thought of Charo as ever living in a house, and talking to people. I'm finding that Dave Coulier is MUCH cooler away from the Olsen twins and that Jordan Knight is as much of a jerk as I thought he was. And above all, watching the strangeness of Flavor Flav as he tries to mack it with Sly Stallone's ex-wife.... it's interesting, what I can say. It's helping me remember that people aren't always what they seem.

[Kat45]

26. It bothers me that many of the shows seek to embarrass, humiliate or trick

Greed is a major factor. They also tend to show the worst in people: nasty competition, backstabbing, being phony: msy the best asshole win. IMHO, they showcase the worst aspects of humanity.

No, I don't watch any of them, but I've seen pieces of shows here and there. Also can't get away from them on television, between the commercials, the stories about them on the news, and the appearances on talk shows of the most recent person kicked off.

I can't even call my mother on the phone when one of the shows is on; she doesn't want to miss anything. And she watches several of them.

[petronius]

28. I agree with your first paragraph

They frequently do bring out some awful behavior. However, I'm less inclined to condemmn the shows like Fear Factor that are honest about what they are - people doing stupid stunts for money and being laughed at.

[petronius]

27. I hate that they're called "reality"...

...because they're not, but I do get a lot of pleasure out of Apprentice. (Mostly 'cause I like seeing Carolyn roll her eyes at people.) I also watched Dog Eat Dog on occasion, mainly because that giant set looked like a really cool playroom. Generally, however, the more 'serious' the show pretends to be, and the more the players think it means something (e.g. Survivor, Big Brother, et al.), then the less I like it...

[GoddessOfGuinness]

29. Never touch the stuff...

I barely have time for my internet addiction.

[Khephra]

30. I'm glad people here like them

But it sure would be nice if each network would agree to only one hour of reality programing a night. Some night's there's literately nothing on but reality shows. Some written programing might be nice for the rest of us--and please don't make anymore CSI or Law & Order spin-offs, please!

I tried reality shows with one of the very first--The Real World, or, as I like to call it "The Show That Took The Music Out of Music Television". COPS didn't help much either.

I don't like being around other people that much. I'm pretty solitary. I sure as hell don't find it enjoyable to watch people that I'd rather kick in the head than see on my TV as entertainment.

But, and I'm serious, I am glad they bring enjoyment to others. I'm just hoping that we can turn the tide of new shows back a bit and hire some writers and actors again.

[Lizzie Borden]

31. I know somebody who applied to be on survivor...

He said it ended up costing him a fortune, and they don't even bother to contact you.

[lazarus]

35. interesting

I wonder how the woman who's on Survivor now, how makes less than $35k a year, managed to spend a fortune on her application.

It's a free application. At the most it'll cost you a video tape.

Is there more to the story?

[Nightowl_2004]

32. Amazing Race Rules!

I'm addicted to that Reality Show, and that one alone.

[Swamp Rat]

33. I'd rather watch paint dry.

Television has single handedly ended the age of literacy... "reality" TV has exponentially increased the speed of this death.

It's the End of the Modern Age
By JOHN LUKACS

(snip)

"The reproduction of more and more pictures in newspapers, magazines, and books; the advent of moving pictures and, finally, of television led to a condition in which -- again, not unlike the Middle Ages -- the routine imagination of large masses of people became pictorial rather than verbal."

(snip)

http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i33/33b00701.htm

http://yalepress.yale.edu/YupBooks/viewbook.asp?isbn=0300092962

[Skittles]

36. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

YOU ARE NOT ALONE - THEY F***ING STINK

[Rhiannon12866]

37. Zero. I hate them

I worked with the major networks and know that these sad offerings are just a cost-cutting measure. They don't have to pay writers or actors for these shows. The first cost-cutting measure was the proliferation of news shows, replacing sitcoms and dramas. This was the next, and lowest and cheapest, tier.:-(