Let's get one thing straight. In my view, television is meant to inform and entertain. It is meant to illuminate and elucidate. It may also scare and depress or inspire and ennoble, but at its core it is about taking you to another plane and allowing you to experience right in the comfort of your living room an otherwise unattainable experience.
Reality shows in my opinion do none of these things. Watching a group of people who are locked up in a house go about their dysfunctional lives (Big Brother) or contestants vying with one another to display the most venal of personal character traits to get one of their fellow contestants thrown off the show (Survivor) is neither informative nor entertaining.
Apart from the slightest bit of schadenfreude associated with watching people gorging on worms or hanging from a helicopter (Fear Factor), there is little illumination and less elucidation.
Reality shows have come to represent the death of intelligent story-telling on network television. If the only choice viewers have on network TV is a reality show about a pretend millionaire selecting from a bevy of beautiful (but essentially gold-digging) damsels, and a lame sit-com about a family of doctors (Out of Practice), there's no prize for guessing what prurient interests are going to gravitate towards.
But please, let's be clear I am not for a moment suggesting that anything relating related to reality is boring. The History Channel is awesome. So is SPEED (my personal favorite). And A&E, and The Food Network (but I hate Rachel Ray - doesn't she look like the Joker?), and Animal Planet. But if you don't have cable (even basic cable) you're doomed to watch re-runs of 'King of Queens' (which is actually pretty funny) and 'That 70s Show' on UPN or put up with CSI: Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Whatever happened to great writing in the humor genre like 'Frasier' or 'Seinfeld' on network TV? Don't say it lives on in 'Curb your Enthusiasm'. I've had all I can take of a middle-aged Jewish guy going through his dysfuncional life. A group of young neurotic people I can take. An old bald guy who has the same sophomoric problems - not so much.
Now if only network TV had more shows like 'Without a Trace' or '24' I wouldn't need cable. But then what would I do without 'The Sopranos' or 'Big Love' or 'The Entourage' or 'Deadwood'? Not much. Come to it, when these shows are on I don't do much of anything else anyway.
The point of it is that all these shows call for writing. WRITING. Not getting getting a bunch of pathetic losers and dunking them in a tank of frogs. And I'm not referring to the French here. Though, come to think of it, that would make for fabulous televison.
Think about it: Cletus the slack-jawed yokel in a tank of Frenchmen. Now, I would pay to watch that.
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3 comments:
Now Im scared.
One of my favourite men is condemning reality TV. And I just pitcehd an advertising pased reality game show to my bosses and they lurved it.
IMHO, Reality TV is entertainment. A lot of television, video games and movies are about experiencing that which we cannot. Experiencing vicariously, and deriving pleasure/entertainment through voyeurism.
And who among us doesn't dreive pleasure from voyeurism, in some little way? Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
And as far as television shows which involve great writing go, I point you in the direction of House.
cheers!
me
I'll accept your point on voyeurism, but I think it's really more schadenfreude. "Boy, am I glad I'm not the poor sucker having to undo a complicated knot while cockroaches in the hundreds are crawling all over me"
My point is just that the growth of reality shows spells the death of creative writing. And we are all the poorer for it.
But do reality shows have high ratings and make money? Most emphatically, yes - or else they would not be on.
You shouldn't feel bad about pitching a reality show. What your bosses want you to do is make money for the network and generate ratings. Nothing wrong with that.
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the masses. Nothing wrong with that either.
So why don't you pitch a high-brow, creatively well written show, to cleanse your karma and balance the universe?
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. And keep coming back.
If we can't argue over drinks in my kitchen anymore, we can at least argue here!
i kinda like the amazing race..
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