BB vs. Other Reality Shows
TV ClubHouse: ARCHIVES: Big Brother USA 2003 General Discussions Part 1:
BB vs. Other Reality Shows
Tdicaprio | Wednesday, August 20, 2003 - 07:21 am     I'm a huge fan of reality shows. A lot of them. Amazing Race, Last Comic Standing, Survivor, Cupid, American Idol, etc. But the one I look forward to the most, the one I can't wait to get started and dig in to, is Big Brother. So here's my list of why I like BB over all the other shows. 1. The Clubhouse - there is something about the combination of the clubhouse and the tv show that hits the right mix. I've visted lots of other boards and discussions for the other shows, but the BB clubhouse is by far the best. Bunny's live feed summaries are too funny for words. Even when the show is boring, the clubhouse is hopping and it creates a nice balance. 2. Live Feeds - so many of the other shows are edited for audience reaction. We are shown what they want us to see, rather than shaping our own opinions by what really happens. This also is true of BB, but we have the advantage of live feeds, so if we care to, we can read or watch the live feeds to get more of the "real" story of a reality show. 3. The Gore Factor - Reality shows thrive on one-upping each other in grossness. One week we see someone eating live octopus and next week we're sure to see something even worse. Although BB has started a tradition of the one night of eating something gross, they let the natural grossness of everyday living take over. There is more of a reaction from fans when a BB contestant fails to wash their hands after using the bathroom than I've EVER seen from watching someone ingest the nastiest of treats on Fear Factor. And has there ever been anything more gross on tv than watching Robert continually pick his nose? Life is gross and we get to watch it in all its gory. 4. Just Far Enough - I love Survivor, but I have to admit, I get uncomfortable watching them slowly starve each season. BB makes it more fun because we see the houseguests complaining about having to eat pb&j for a week. It makes them uncomfortable, but we don't have to watch a perfectly good hot body waste away to a skeleton. Plus, we can poke fun at them because really, would you rather eat rice and chicken feed for a month or watch Robert go dramatic for a week when he has to eat pb&j? It's much more fun to be a drama queen or king about starving than to actually starve. And it's even more fun to watch someone put on a few pounds and deny it than it is to watch them waste away to Calista Flockhartness. 5. The Roommate Fear - who among us hasn't had that one roommate who inspires thoughts of mayhem and murder? In Amazing Race, there are two people who know each other working against the others. Survivor has a bunch of strangers thrown together for a few weeks trying to outlast, etc. BUT, BB has these strangers LIVING together, day in, day out for 3 months, unrelenting, no where to go, no place to escape. Day after long day, in your face, sleeping, eating, crying, plotting. Strong attractions, unreasonable hate, pickpickpick. It's like a slow water torture and it's great. It's so awesome to watch our emotions swing from week to week on BB as the houseguests slowly reveal their true natures and change their personalities based on who got HOH that week. With Survivor, it's all about gung-ho, flat-out competition and the weak never survive. On BB, the weaker you are sometimes, the longer you can make it and even thrive. Would Robert, June or Erika made it past the first three weeks of Survivor? 6. K.I.S.S - keep it simple stupid. The competitions on BB are laughable. Locked in a cage in the backyard for a few hours and then going in for a feast or standing on a pylon in the ocean, with the sun beating down on you and a bowl of rice when you are done? BB makes the competitions so easy that we can imagine ourselves doing them. Survivor and Fear Factor make their competitions terrifying (and entertaining), but I could never see myself doing them and therefore, never imagine myself competing on those shows. But pointing a camera at a plasma screen? Donning a strawberry costume and sitting in a giant cereal bowl? Yeah, those I could do. Wearing a bikini on national t.v.? Ok, maybe I'll just watch from home. Ok..that's all I have for now. Feel free to add your own! |
Cablejockey | Wednesday, August 20, 2003 - 08:14 am     Big Brother is the reality show that shows the home viewer a brand of reality they can relate to. We can certainly see ourselves sitting in a house for 3 months, bitching and scheming, much more than being in the jungle or travelling around the world--stuff we may not be able to physically do., or want to do. Being forced to rub elbows with the nasty nutty hgs is more realistic because we have to deal with people like them at work, at the gym, or in our neighbourhoods. |
Cliotheleo | Wednesday, August 20, 2003 - 09:51 am     Oh I agree. I've always been fascinated with people and why they do things so to have access 24/7 access to a bunch of people locked in a house with nothing to do but interact with one another is why I love this show so much. I'd rather see Jun play both sides against one another than watch her eat a bug. |
Ravenest | Wednesday, August 20, 2003 - 11:43 am     I am so excited to see a PRO-BIG BROTHER thread!! TDICAPRIO...you are right on! Big Brother is continually the BEST in Reality TV and it is something I look forward to seeing throughout the year until summer! I love reality shows, but BB is TOPS! |
Wilsonatmd | Wednesday, August 20, 2003 - 11:49 am     I think BB has the "normalness" factor- they're not living in an exotic land, they're not running around the world...They're just living, for the most part, as normally as they would as at home, except they cant go anywhere. The 24/7 cameras are good because we see everything (execpt for the FOTH parts), the strategizing, the nice things, the bad things, how people interact. Survivor we see less than one hour out of 36 (3 days), done months in advance so it can be edited in ways to make certain people look good, bad, or indifferent based on how they eventually end up, since the outcome is known....Yes, if you don't have the feeds, you miss alot, and sometimes the shows are edited in strange ways, but what you see is what you get in BB, and since the show is in realtime, you actually see how the characters develop, and not how the producers want to see them develop. Also, even the producers don't know who will go until almost the last possible minute, so theres an unpredictablity factor. |
Zachsmom | Wednesday, August 20, 2003 - 11:50 am     You mean there are other reality shows besides BB? I love BB! I love it all! I even love that I dislike certain HGs and think one seasons HGs are better than anothers. But all in all I love the show and what makes it better is having TVCH to come to talk about it!! YAY BB! |
Crossfire | Wednesday, August 20, 2003 - 11:53 am     This thread did not get as many posts as I thought it would, but I just wanted to say that I thought it was a good one. Here is one of the big reasons I like BB at least as much, if not as is usually true, more than all the others. It provides 24/7 content. We don't need to sit around for days and days waiting for a new morsel of carefully edited content to be dropped on our laps. We get to pontificate on the various happenings in near real time. No other show lets us become as intimately involved with the characters. Getting to see them during their on, and off time gives us a greater insight to who they really are on the set. |
Cooki | Wednesday, August 20, 2003 - 11:54 am     The only thing better than watching BB in the summer would be to have BB twice a year ( one in the summer and one in the winter) ! |
Tobor7 | Wednesday, August 20, 2003 - 12:13 pm     They should do a 12-month BB! |
Tdicaprio | Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 05:09 am     YEAH! Year-round BB...love it! It would be nice to have it at least twice a year. |
Kaili | Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 06:06 am     They could keep people constantly in the house and just rotate & replace them now and then. That would be cool. And it could just be on it's own channel, but I do like the editied shows too so they would still have to do those. |
Ravenest | Friday, August 22, 2003 - 06:27 am     I don't know about 12 months Big Brother...I mean I LOVE the show, but if that happened it would consume my ENTIRE life and I'd never get one thing done - like work, eating, celebrating holidays, sleeping, showering...hee hee! OK, maybe my addiction is not THAT bad....but it might be. |
Gidget | Friday, August 22, 2003 - 06:36 am     BB channel. Hmmmm. We have the game show channel. Match Game 72 is alive and well. Can reality TV channel be far off. Surely there is enough in the can to run 24/7. And then they can start original programming. Like perpetual BB. But first they have to sell the video/DVD sets. When that market cools off, we will surely have the Reality Channel. Something to look forward to in my old age. |
Naja | Friday, August 22, 2003 - 06:46 am     It wasn't too long ago that there was NO new TV during the summer. All reruns. I love that network TV has followed cable in giving us new primetime programming during the summer. BB is part of that for me. This is my first summer with the feeds. Does anyone remember when the only thing new on tv during the summer that you hadn't seen already was the news? It sucked. I love how it has all changed. |
Hobbs | Friday, August 22, 2003 - 06:58 am     The best part of BB is the FOTH. I pronounce it fawth (never mind - different thread). The FOTH puts us on the edge of our seats for hours listening to FOTH music. Remember the hidden picture veto comp? We were dying to know what happened. Then when FOTH goes away, there's Nathan and someone else with snakes around there necks (never figured that one out). So we sit there and try to figure out what happened based on what they say. This also happened last night for 2 hours during the "twist". We were glued to our computers because we had to know. So maybe it isn't the FOTH I like, it's the trying to decode what happened when the FOTH goes away. "All humans love a good mystery." - Captain Picard |
Angelsluv | Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - 12:46 pm     There is a reality channel in the works. It's suposed to start next year |
Angelsluv | Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - 12:52 pm     Executive Plans a Cable Option To Capitalize on Reality Shows By EMILY NELSON Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL This just might be surreality TV. The television executive who helped create the popular E! Entertainment cable channel is now trying to start a reality-show channel, called Reality Central, that will run original programs, repeats and where-are-they-now shows. Reality Central plans to debut in January, reaching about three million homes as part of a digital-cable package. Larry Namer, Reality Central president and chief executive, says he hopes to expand to 30 million homes within two years. Mr. Namer, who was a co-founder of E! Entertainment Television Inc., still needs to secure the rights to repeat hit shows as well as line up advertisers. He plans to unveil his pitch to advertisers Monday. The success or failure of Mr. Namer's project will say a lot for the genre; the conventional wisdom is that reruns of reality shows don't attract big audiences because most are contests and the ending is already known. Indeed, while the TV networks like reality shows because they cost less to make than sitcoms and dramas, so far they've viewed them as having little repeat, or syndication, value. That said, these unscripted shows have generated some of entertainment TV's biggest audiences this season. Marketers who were initially hesitant to advertise during reality shows, fearing it could tarnish their brand image, now are separating the well-produced shows from schlock, media buyers say. Large media companies such as News Corp. have considered launching an all-reality-show cable channel, but it hasn't made it past the idea stage. One advantage for reality fare is that it tends to attract the crucial 18- to 34-year-old demographic that advertisers crave. "Why shouldn't there be a 24-hour reality-show channel?" asks R.J. Cutler, a producer and director who is producing "American Candidate," a reality series to run on the FX cable channel that lets viewers choose a presidential candidate. Mr. Cutler points to the plethora of cable channels dedicated to seemingly minor subjects. "It's a fairly brilliant idea," he says. In a particularly meta-turn, Mr. Namer is planning "Meet the Makers," a reality show about the making of a reality-show TV channel. Cameras simply follow Mr. Namer and his team. Viewers will also be able to log on to the show's Web site to watch outtakes and participate in executive programming meetings, Mr. Namer says. "It's almost like a soap opera." Other shows on his lineup include "Real Central News," a half-hour news report modeled on "Access Hollywood" about the reality shows on other channels, with stories about casting and ratings. Another planned show is "Back to Reality," which will interview reality-show contestants about their experience during and after the show. Mr. Namer says he is negotiating with five distributors for rights to rebroadcast big-name reality shows. He figures about half of the schedule will be his original programming; 25%, repeats of reality-show "classics"; and the remaining 25%, international reality shows. He plans to dub foreign-language shows, adding a humorous touch. Some initial funding for "Reality Central" was raised by the channel's chairman, Blake Mycoskie, a former losing contestant on CBS reality hit "Amazing Race." Mr. Mycoskie convinced the show's winners as well as winners from several other reality shows to put in seed money. The channel has also lined up some big names from past reality shows, like Richard Hatch, the original "Survivor" winner, to promote the channel. Reality Channel |
Beruthiel | Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - 03:17 pm     What Crossfire said. |
Eeyoreslament | Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - 04:14 pm     Tdicaprio, what a GREAT post. You really sum up lots of the great things about this show. I love the show no matter how much I hate it every year. And I personally would love to see some of the suggestions in this thread come true. A reality channel, where we can watch all night, like in the UK, or a year long reality game, where each week someone is voted out, and another person comes in. The Ongoing Reality Project. It would be great!! |
Seamonkey | Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - 04:19 pm     Good thread! |
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