Way too much reality krap on network tv.

[reddice]

I did a search on my guide and I found way too much reality tv on network tv. What happened to the scripted shows instead of this unscripted garbage.

Monday:
NBC- For Love of Money, Meet My Folks
FOX- Paradise Hotel
Tuesday:
NBC- Dog Eats Dog, Last Comic Standing
FOX- American Juniors
UPN- America's Next Top Model
Wedesday:
NBC- Fame
ABC- The Dating Experiment
FOX- Paradise Hotel
WB- Bording House: North Shore
Thursday:
CBS- The Amazing Race
Sunday:
WB- Bording House: North Shore

That is all of them I think, now that is way to much and most of them are stupid romantic reality garbage where a baclour is trying to pick the right woman out of 5 and each go on a date, come on already.

Thank goodness for good cable shows like the Dead Zone, and Monk on USA because this reality krap on network tv is way too much.

[Mike123abc]

During the summer months I do not even watch network TV. WAY too much junk on there. I watch a lot of DVDs.

[firephoto]

Just watch for the Reality Wrap-Up which is on VH1. It gives an excellent humorous highlight to most of the reality shows and you don't have to watch the stupid shows for hours.

[timf]

There are getting to be too many dating/relationship and talent competition reality shows. Besides the Amazing Race, there aren't any travel/adventure shows such as The Mole or Survivor. These are the best type of reality shows IMO, and it would be nice to see more of them.

[dtcarson]

And just think, one of the losers of one of the shows from last year, is trying to get funding for a Reality TV Network....I almost hope it succeeds; but only if all the network reality shows would go to it, so I could remove RealityTV from my channel guide.
Ironically, the talent ones are actually the ones I might actually support, because they actually give people a chance to 'be seen', whereas otherwise their chances are slim to none. But I have had more than enough of the 'Five different people in a room together,' or 'Gee, which model lookalike will the single guy/girl go after?'

I get enough reality, backstabbing, cliques, political correctness, at work to watch this dreck at home. Not even mentioning the fact that it's not even reality--if you want reality, they should pick the next five people walking down the street or into a mall, rather than 'auditions' and 'casting calls' to pick a carefully representative [and ratings-attractive] sample of 'America'.

Unfortunately, there's probably even more to come--reality shows cost something like 1/10-1/20th of a 'real' show, they apparently make money, and there's no shortage of idiots who want their 15 seconds of fame and will do anything to be on TV. I'm waiting for saturation point--like with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? There's only so many hours in a week that they can fill with reality before if backfires and people start getting overloaded. But I guess if they milk the hell out of the cow before that happens, they don't care [or will act surprised] when the cow keels over dead [not soon enough for my taste.]

On a related note, who's seen the movie Series 7: The Contenders? Excellent, disturbing movie: screenplay was written about 8-10 years ago, before 'reality' got big. The plot? A tv show where 7 people are chosen at random from among America's citizens. They are taken to a small town, given pistols, and told that the last one alive wins. _That's_ reality; on all these current fear shows, they've all got bungee cords and safety belts. [Ironically, I thought the characters in Series 7 were more realistic and had more well-rounded personality than 99% of the slack-jawed Gen X troglodytes that inhabit 'Reality' shows.]

Societal comment: I think, if this reality show trend doesn't peak real quick, combined with the anti-terrorism fears, we are well on our way to accepting many erosions of civil rights, and acceptances of violations of privacy. It's ok for us to watch a show where the camera is in the house [Big Brother], bedroom [any of the ones on MTV], or while dating [any of the relationship ones.] It's not too far from there to having a camera on every street corner, mall, workplace, maybe even inside houses. Combine the reality concept with the 'hidden camera' concept [Scare Tactics, Jamie Kennedy, Candid Camera which was actually funny] and eventually we'll see hidden cameras on job interviews, church confessions, blind dates, in the bedroom; all cases where at least one person doesn't know the camera's there. The Truman Show will have nothing on The USA Show--brought to you by Toyota. Stay tuned for next week's episode, where we catch Mr and Mrs Johnson fighting over Mr Johnson's affair with his secretary, and where we see Johnny try to score with Suzie in the back seat after the prom--are the rumours true? Is Suzie really a slut? Only the cheerleading squad knows for sure--until Johnny took our camera on his date.

</paranoidantirealityshowrant>

[catman]

When they show that all these reality shows are rigged . Maybe then , we will see less . ONly losers would go on these shows . Reality is , getting a job . Look mout Thompson Might stick his fingers in that yet .

[Mark Holtz]

The best reality shows, in my opinion, is The Amazing Race and The Mole, both of which lies more in skill and less on tribal politics. However, there is one side effect of the reality shows--they don't attact as high-quality advertiser than a regular show.

I own the Series 7: The Contenders DVD and have reviewed it for The Logbook (http://www.thelogbook.com/jcc/q3-02/series7/). Ironically, they were in the final edit for the film when the original Survivor premiered, and the basis for that movie was shows like COPS and Rescue 911. It just so happens that it is airing on Encore's Action channel at the following times:

Jul 5 - 5:40PM
Jul 9 - 11:45PM
Jul 18 - 8:30PM
Jul 19 - 2:20AM
Jul 23 - 1:40AM
Jul 28 - 8:30PM

Added: Good luck finding the DVD. It was issued by USA Films, which was then absorbed into Universal, and has not been re-released. I was able to snag a copy while at Best Buy one evening.

[DarrellP]

That's why we have over 200 channels, so we can watch some other form of crap.

[Kevin]

Television is very trendy. Give it another year or two and all this "reality" crap will roll over.

[Nick]

Don't blame MTV for the proliferation of so-called 'reality' shows. Blame the network whores, who like ducklings waddling after mother duck, will obediently waddle after any programming trend that looks like a duck. And blame the millions of brain-dead slugs who ingest that garbage week-after-week. Why Nielson selects these idiots to 'measure', I'll never know. If we consider human progress based on what people watch on TV, then the race is definitely regressing.

Won't somebody PLEASE clean out the gene pool?

[James_F]

Blame it on Betty Crocker and their PopSecret's "Old Fashioned" variety popcorn (http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=16287) that keeps people from going outside, stuck in front of their TVs....

[Nick]

Hey James, good to see BB back. 500 sb's and no cork! :D

[James_F]

LOL, only in the Champagne... :p

[Steve Mehs]

Hey James WB :righton:

Reality TV is just a fad, like the game show reincarnation of a few years go, or the judge shows before that. They never completely went away, but they died down a lot and so will reality TV, and hopefully very soon. I don't mind Cops, but I guess I don't see it as a reality show, it is, but it involves citizens doing their jobs keeping the streets clean, not some talentless moron looking for a $1M. I don't really give a rats behind how people are trying to prove themselves by wining these 'games' but I see them just as they were before they hit it big, just another face in the crowd. What really got me is when ABC interrupted, a few weeks of Blue for that stupid The Family show, come on, does anyone really care about a brain bead show like that. Do I think this shows are rigged and manipulated, you bet. I can't wait for this trend to die. I really enjoyed the Twilight Zone episode, 'How Much Do You Love Your Kid'. That episode really showed how idiotic reality tv is.

[dtcarson]

The best reality shows, in my opinion, is The Amazing Race and The Mole, both of which lies more in skill and less on tribal politics. However, there is one side effect of the reality shows--they don't attact as high-quality advertiser than a regular show.

I own the Series 7: The Contenders DVD and have reviewed it for The Logbook (http://www.thelogbook.com/jcc/q3-02/series7/). Ironically, they were in the final edit for the film when the original Survivor premiered, and the basis for that movie was shows like COPS and Rescue 911. It just so happens that it is airing on Encore's Action channel at the following times:

Jul 5 - 5:40PM
Jul 9 - 11:45PM
Jul 18 - 8:30PM
Jul 19 - 2:20AM
Jul 23 - 1:40AM
Jul 28 - 8:30PM

Added: Good luck finding the DVD. It was issued by USA Films, which was then absorbed into Universal, and has not been re-released. I was able to snag a copy while at Best Buy one evening.

Re: advertiser quality: That's interesting, I hadn't heard that or noticed [but then I don't actually seriously watch those shows.] But I'd guess they're getting a lot of the 18-30 male audience, which is supposed to have the biggest wallet.
Re: Series 7 DVD: lucked out and got a PVT copy at EB for 4.99 :) Can't beat that--one of the few movies I've rented from Netflix, and later bought. [It was actually priced 7.99, marked down from 11.99 and 14.99, but rang up as some kids' DVD for 4.99.]

[catman]

How can you kill someone ? has that been on reality show no . The case that is in the news now was on CSI . Gisim said " this body has been moved . " A homeless guy was killed and put in a windsheild .

[Mark Holtz]

FWIW: I discovered a friend liked "dark humor" movies, so I showed her Series 7: The Contenders. She was ROFLing and said that it was completely f-ed up.