Have you ever stopped to wonder why reality television programmes have become so tremendously popular? After all, they now take up an enormous part of our viewing schedule. ‘Big Brother’, ‘Coach Trip’, ‘I’m a Celebrity’, ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, ‘The X Factor’; it seems as though many of the public simply cannot get enough of this type of entertainment. But why? What is it that makes ‘reality’ TV so universally appealing?
The other day I was at my girlfriend’s place generally lazing around when suddenly she went ‘OMG’ and darted to the TV set. In those brief seconds, my mind panicked. Had aliens attacked us? Was there a tornado at our doorstep? Or horror of horrors, was a family member involved in a serious accident? I watched dumfounded as she raced not to miss even a second of the TV show, ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’.
I will admit to having watched a couple of episodes of TOWIE (that’s “The Only Way is Essex” if you’ve been living under a rock for the last two years) and kind of enjoyed the trashy blondes with their gallons of spray-on tan, tantrums and (fake) tiaras. OK, they clearly only had a couple of brain cells between them, and made the stars of US shows like ’The Hills'look like a graduating class from Oxford, but it was perfect hangover TV; the kind of show which you don’t need to engage your brain in order to understand or enjoy.
But has MTV gone too far with its latest reality TV venture, a UK version of the popular ’Jersey Shore'set in Newcastle? Jersey Shore has become the programme that Americans love to hate, with fashion labels requesting that the stars stop wearing their clothes and with many bars in Atlantic City banning the cameras because they’re always followed by trouble. ’Geordie Shore'will have to go some to match that kind of reputation, but in a city that’s well known for its brassy blondes and moronic Gazza-esque guys, the producers have somehow managed to scrape the bucket for the show’s current cast…
In fact, the Geordie Shore boys and girls are so obnoxious, so arrogant and so damn nasty to each other and anyone and everyone who crosses their path that it actually isn’t entertaining. Whereas the TOWIE bitching is funny, because of the ludicrous name-calling and frequent language errors, GS is rather like watching the clever kid being bullied in the playground by the girls who aren’t actually pretty and cool, but who think they are. I’d rather work on my quote for tin bespoke solutions than watch it; and when I say that about a reality TV show, you know it must be bad!
If you’d have told someone, a hundred years ago, “Guess what? In the future there’s going to be this thing called reality TV and it’ll basically not be TV at all, but just filming what really happens,” they probably would have looked at you very strangely at first – because you were wearing clothes from the future and such strange oddities as trainers – and then shouted “hang him!” (Or hang her, if you are a she.)
And they’d have been right to query this…because, let’s be honest, reality TV is really quite strange. There was no way anyone could have really seen it coming, yet here it is, and it is here to stay…
Big Brother, of course, produced and devised originally by Netherlands company Endemol, is naturally the most famous of all reality TV shows (swiftly followed by the I’m a Celebrity… series which does not really deserve a full mention here!). Devised to take a load of misfits – usually who all have abrasive personalities and would never ordinarily meet in everyday life – and throw them all together in a kind of crude lion’s-den scenario, the series has been a major worldwide hit and caused dozens of other TV production companies to jump on this ever-popular bandwagon.
Series after series saw new foolish contestant after new contestant
And for a while it looked like reality TV would never end. Series after series saw new foolish contestant after new contestant, from fitness-freaks who can’t live without their newton running shoes and cycling shorts to beauty queens who refuse to leave their bedroom without their hair-dryer in hand and a perm on top.
Then it ended. Finally. Some were delighted. Others were appalled. But nobody, at least, could argue that reality TV hadn’t had a good innings.
For a while it looked as though that was it. Then, of course, a new twist hit the genre: the faux reality TV series.
Turn on the TV at the wrong time now – or right time, if you’re one of the millions who is as addicted to these TV shows as they are the social networks – and you might be accosted by any number of series; from those featuring the infamous Kardashians, to those featuring Geordies and Essex girls galore.
So you have to ask yourself: is this the end of the reality genre? Or is there more to come?
I wish it was the end, because enough is enough now, but I have a horrible feeling that it’s just the beginning of this new perversion…
Ah, this news of a new Junior Apprentice coming soon was like music to my ears. If you saw the last series – the first of its kind, if I am not mistaken – then you will know what I mean.
It went like this:
Take a load of dorky kids with massive egos and put them in front of Lord Sugar himself. Then set them hideous tasks, such as, horror of horrors, working together as a team and forcing one another to stay up past their bed time! Oh, I know, it’s TERRIBLE…
Then come the challenges. Devised by Alan’s ruthless streak to scare the crap out of all the contestants and teach them a thing or two about business, each one saw a mixture of massive hormones, huge bigheadedness and enormous convoluted dreams to take over the world. I’m not even joking. These kids really did want to take over the world.
Seriously, it made my day and made me feel lucky to now be fully grown
Fast forward to half-way through the series and they were suffering. Now with a much better %u2013 and much more putrid and sickening %u2013 idea of what being an adult is all about, they are forced to be even more…business-ey…to the very end when the final tasks separates…well, the ones with pubic hair from the ones yet to acquire that privilege. Seriously, many of them look so young and fragile that when you hear what comes out of their mouth — lots of talk about experience and insight — it’s like you’re watching demons host some massive corporate evil puppet-show.
I may make a mockery of the series — and for good reason, please, do listen to some of their quotes on Youtube — but in truth there were things about this series that I loved more than the adult Apprentice. One of them was how young they all looked. Young and innocent. Like lambs to a very bloody slaughter. In other words: great TV! Fantastic TV! The kind of TV that you can watch over and over again. Other peoples falling has never been so pleasurable to watch and enjoy! (Seriously, it made my day and made me feel lucky to now be fully grown.)
So this, my old buddy old pal, is why I am looking forward to the new series of this fantastic show. It’s sure to be absolutely loaded with mini bespoke designer suits and all kinds of worrying claims made by people who are scarcely old enough to buy milk yet. Now, wouldn’t you agree with me that all this amounts to TV gold?
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