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Archive through February 23, 2005

The TVClubHouse: Other Reality Shows ARCHIVES: Archives for 2005-3: Is reality tv sinking to a new low???: Archive through February 23, 2005 users admin

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Texannie
Member

07-16-2001

Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - 11:14 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
oops

Texannie
Member

07-16-2001

Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - 11:19 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
New reality series are being born so quickly, it's tough to keep up. Here are some newly announced and/or casting series. Oddly, most of them focus on races or journeys of some kind:

The racetrack most famously known for its connection to Seabiscuit will take center stage in the Game Show Network's pick-up of a Stone-Stanley series called American Dream Derby, which "follows 12 owners, the Thoroughbreds they recently purchased, and their relationship between each other, the owners, and jockeys." Thoroughbred Times reports that it "premieres in January 2005 with the live American Dream Derby race set for February 21 at Santa Anita."
In October, Bravo will air a six-episode series that follows Ewan McGregor's "four-month transcontinental motorcycle journey with his friend and fellow actor Charley Boorman," NBC13.com reports. There will be drama on Long Way Round: Ewan fell into a river in Mongolia while on the trip.
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck will produce an Apprentice-like series for Spike TV called American Start-Up, The New York Post reports. The show "will give eight wannabe entrepreneurial businesses -- some with several staffers -- a shot at making their dream businesses come to life." Affleck and Damon won't appear in the series.
Moving toward the more shocking concepts, Reality Access is searching "for young men and women over 18 and who have been separated from their biological parent(s) at infancy, and men and women who have been separated from their biological children, to participate in a television program about reuniting." Interested? Then "email your name, age, where you live and contact number along with a recent photo of yourself to: reunitedcasting@yahoo.com or call 818.563.4131."


Last and definitely least, Endemol, those evil •••••••• responsible for Big Brother, "are devising a concept called Make Me A Mum that would feature men competing to father a child and take part in a 'sperm race'." That's according to News.com.au, which reports that "1000 male contestants would be whittled down to a final pair by using two criteria. ... New German technology would film the 'sperm race finale', giving viewers a chance to see which of the finalists' sperm reaches the female's egg first."



http://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/

Scorpiomoon
Member

06-06-2002

Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - 12:53 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
"are devising a concept called Make Me A Mum that would feature men competing to father a child and take part in a 'sperm race'."

Oh boy. That's pretty tacky.

I find reality TV is getting more and more ridiculous as opposed to sleazy, but I guess "ridiculous" and "sleazy" are subjective.

When we have a 13-part reality show that follows death row inmates to their execution (or something as crazy as that) then we know the genre has gone too far.

Puzzled
Member

08-27-2001

Tuesday, July 27, 2004 - 8:29 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
When we have a 13-part reality show that follows death row inmates to their execution (or something as crazy as that) then we know the genre has gone too far.

OMG, if the networks read this, they'll go for it for sure.


Rslover
Member

11-19-2002

Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 10:12 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Reality Show Holds Up Green Card As Bait
Spanish-Language Reality Show Offering Contestants a Chance at a Green Card As Bait


The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES Aug. 5, 2004 — A Spanish-language reality TV show is offering contestants an unusual prize: the services of immigration lawyers to guide them toward a green card for U.S. residency.
"Gana la Verde" "Win the Green" began airing daily last month on KRCA-TV Channel 62 in Los Angeles. Owner Liberman Broadcasting also airs the program on its San Diego, Houston and Dallas stations.

"People say that our show is like 'Fear Factor,' but it's different because the climax of the show involves working," production manager Adrian Vallarino told the Los Angeles Times.

The show's winner receives a year's worth of help from attorneys to expedite the residency process, the Times reported Wednesday. There's no guarantee of a green card.

Contestants have performed stunts including gulping down live tequila worms, trapping a butter-drenched pig and jumping between two speeding 18-wheelers.

A U.S. immigration official warned against undue optimism for contestants.

"I don't think it's appropriate for me to comment on the premise of a television show except to say that they are holding out false hope to people," said Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, adding that it "sounds very much like exploitation."

The show has consistently reached an average of 1 million Hispanic households and last week was No. 2 among 18-to-49-year-old Hispanic viewers.

"If it's true what they say, that they are helping people get their papers in order, I think that's great," said Luis Sanchez, 24, of Los Angeles. "I don't think the show can hurt anyone. ... I don't think the immigration service is going to go after anyone because they are on the show."

Attorney Richard Sherman, representing Liberman Broadcasting, said contestants are made aware of the risks.

"If you're illegal, it probably would be better not to be on anybody's radar screen," Sherman said. "It's possible there is some risk of that. But I don't think it's going to catch the attention of Homeland Security. They have other things to do now."

Many of the contestants have student or work visas or have applied to become residents.



Lori
Member

04-18-2003

Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 11:55 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
"are devising a concept called Make Me A Mum that would feature men competing to father a child and take part in a 'sperm race.'"

Yuck...that is a new low!

Wilsonatmd
Member

01-23-2001

Friday, December 03, 2004 - 11:24 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Well this may be a new low on the reality scale....according to Kristin over at EOnline, MTV is doing a reality show called "Who's your Daddy?" A teen has never met her father. She and her friends are taking a group of men, one of whom actually is the real dad, thru a series of tests, and she will eliminate the guys she feels isn't her father. If the last man standing is her real dad, she wins a big cash prize (and assumably, if the person she picks isn't her real dad, the one who fooled her gets the cash...)

Sunshyne4u
Member

06-17-2003

Saturday, December 04, 2004 - 1:22 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
sounds like a psychaitrist will be needed for YEARS afterwards. How could a show like this NOT damage someone's psyche??

emotional rollercoaster !

Puzzled
Member

08-27-2001

Saturday, December 04, 2004 - 3:28 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
"concept called Make Me A Mum that would feature men competing to father a child and take part in a 'sperm race'."

OMG--I actually laughed out loud when I read this. Eeeeeek. I really hope this show never sees the light of day.

The one with the kids looking for their Dads is beyond sleazy.

Westtexan
Member

07-16-2004

Saturday, December 04, 2004 - 9:08 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I think the paternity testing that Mauri Povich does on his show is so tacky.

Buggles
Member

09-07-2002

Monday, December 06, 2004 - 1:00 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
isn't it West?? lol. You would think with his executive hair & being married to Connie Chung he could think of something better but I guess not!

Starshine40
Member

07-30-2002

Monday, December 06, 2004 - 5:57 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I think "reality television" has hit many lows. Just because it is termed "reality television" doesn't make it real. So many of them are just scripted stupidity! I won't watch most of them. I do watch Survivor, The Amazing Race and even The Batchelor/ette and some of The Apprentice but that's about it for me. I prefer a good documentary to most of the reality genre.

Wilsonatmd
Member

01-23-2001

Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 4:57 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Well I was wrong...the "Who's Your Daddy?" show isn't MTV......it's Fox

http://wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=114&sid=362624

Hippyt
Member

06-15-2001

Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 5:00 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
We were talking about that show in chat last night Wilson. pretty darn tacky.....

Flint
Member

10-04-2000

Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - 11:05 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Damn, I didn't think there could be something stupider than Who's Your Daddy? but I think Make Me A Mom just might top it.

Scorpiomoon
Member

06-06-2002

Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - 11:49 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
FLINT???

HOLY COW!!!

I haven't seen you around in ages!

How have you been?

Justalittlebean
Member

08-15-2003

Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - 6:19 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
BRIT TV TO AIR 'GUANTANAMO TORTURE' REALITY SHOW

C4 lines up Guantánamo-style torture show

Dominic Timms
Tuesday February 8, 2005

Channel 4 is to broadcast what it is styling a Guantánamo Bay-style reality show that will examine the effects of mild torture on seven male volunteers.
The Guantánamo Guidebook will recreate some of the practices used at the US naval base where hundreds of so-called "enemy combatants" have been held without trial or access to lawyers for nearly three years.

Using an east London warehouse and declassified internal documents obtained from US sources, programme-makers mocked up conditions as they are inside Guantánamo, before subjecting seven volunteers to some of the milder forms of torture alleged to have been used by US authorities.

I think reality shows have gone to far!



Mssilhouette
Member

07-11-2001

Friday, February 11, 2005 - 11:24 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Naw were just one more step closer to "The Running Man" For those that forgot here's the movie description: Arnold Schwartzenegger plays an innocent man who is sentenced to the Running Man game show, a futuristic audience participation capital punishment television show.

How far away are we from it really?...Fear Factor, Survivor.

Cablejockey
Member

12-27-2001

Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 9:48 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Oh The Running Man was one of my favorite stories by Stephen King--I even liked the movie. It was fascinating to think of these people running for their lives, the whole thing followed by tv cameras, with a live audience who would be on the look out for them and try to kill them too. He wrote another similar one called the Long Walk, where contestants had to walk hundreds of miles with no sleep or rest. If you could not walk anymore you were shot. The final walker got anything he wanted for life. People lined the way and watched them suffer.That one would make a good movie too. But i hope the day never comes when reality tv kills off its contestants for the entertainment of the massess. Right now we all seem to be satisfied with just humiliating and criticizing them.

Wilsonatmd
Member

01-23-2001

Wednesday, February 16, 2005 - 10:36 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
well there's this new book out by Erik Barmack called "The Virgin" it's about a contestant on a reality show where the winner gets to deflower a 26-year old woman....a lot of the reality cliches (the eliminations are jiggered around with, the contestants are bored out of their minds with the sequestration, the editing is done to make heroes and villians, and of course, the big twist in the end--which at the time the author wrote it, he had no idea that it would ACTUALLY OCCUR in a actual reality show in a way--I'll let you guess that one).....

here's the amazon listing for it, if your interested.

Erikbarmack
Member

02-20-2005

Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 9:43 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Guys:

I wrote THE VIRGIN, and it was actually difficult to out-satirize the Networks when it came to reality-TV.

As I was writing my rough draft, I started introducing absurd plot twists, but as I made things up, they kept happening on television. Apparently I could not outrun the poor taste of major media companies. But meanwhile, I had managed to find my story — it was about a guy who wanted to change his identity in public.

At any rate, my point is this: the genre itself is interesting (and interesting to write about); but the degree to which the genre has been perverted is, at this point, rather boring.

Albest,

-ESB
http://www.thevirginbook.com

Mak1
Member

08-12-2002

Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 10:12 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
The book sounds like an interesting and fun read for all of us TVCH reality show fans. Thanks for the link, Wilson, and to you, Erik, for giving us some background on it.

Landi
Member

07-29-2002

Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 10:14 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
i just bought it off of barnes and noble!

Erikbarmack
Member

02-20-2005

Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 10:35 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thanks for your support, Landi! It's really hard to get a first novel off the ground. So any sale really helps.

Also, this essay that I wrote adequately reflects, I think, what I went through in writing a book on reality-TV:

http://www.powells.com/fromtheauthor/barmack.html

And, finally, if anyone has been trying to write and publish a first novel, feel free to email me. I have tons of tips.

-ESB

Kep421
Member

08-11-2001

Wednesday, February 23, 2005 - 8:38 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I can't say how low reality TV has sunk because I have never watched any of these shows. I do know however a show that has (at least for me) reached new heights in reality TV. That show would be Extreme Makeover Home Edition.

I'm prolly the biggest sap, but every week that show leaves me feeling so good about just about everything. It restores my faith that good things can happen to good people....

I'm surprised there isn't a thread to discuss this show, but I'm sure there are things I don't know, like its all a fake and everyone is actually paid actors. Well, if that's so, I will simply refuse to beleive it. I will simply continue to enjoy my little shot of feel good once a week!!