THIS WEEKEND'S treacherous snowfall had us trapped indoors for three days, and even though I tried to weather the storm with an outdoor football game and a house-filled fraternity get-together, I eventually gave in to my ominous twenty-seven inch boob tube. I expected to tune in to a couple of good dramatic half-hours and maybe catch up on a few repeats of old favorites, but with the make-up of today's television line-up, that notion wasn't even possible.
As an avid television and theatre connoisseur, I vowed to swear off of any kind of television without acting credits. But somehow this weekend I caved.
With all the hoopla over how exciting reality television is supposed to be these days, I succumbed to the pressure and finally agreed to watch a few "reality-based" shows. Much to my surprise, reality television is much, much worse than it even appears to be, even in commercials. America's craving for real people in not-so-real situations has the television networks producing some of the most overly-hyped and poorly-produced television shows in recent memory, and with all the media fanfare, it looks like it will just get worse. Reality television is cheap to produce, cheap to cast, and even though it makes an acceptable replacement for scripted comedies and dramas, I wasn't counting on it being around this long.
Reality television has taken the commercial art of television production and turned it into a cash cow of the lowest common denominator -- with show after show featuring mindless people in contrived situations that have consequences of the most unrealistic proportions. In the last few years, the networks have spun off the concept of "seven people in a house with their lives taped" and turned it into a endless series of nameless real people who yearn for their fifteen minutes of fame and will put themselves in precarious situations to get it. What was once just having your life taped has now become taping it while eating chocolate-covered roaches in a dunk tank full of snakes for a few extra dollars. And, unfortunately, there are no signs that the reality-trend will stop soon.
Like many of my peers who grew up on a healthy diet of family sitcoms and riveting dramas about cops, lawyers and ER docs -- my fundamental television knowledge is built on structured scripts, well-written dialogue and a little action to keep the pace interesting. So there's no doubt that the boring romantic sequences, the contrite action set-ups and inept conversations of today's reality television shows came as a shock to me -- and worse, people actually watch this and find it interesting enough to keep tuning in week after week.
After hearing about some of the falsified footage from some"Survivor" action sequences and the failure of many ill-fated reality shows like "The Mole," "Boot Camp" and "Pop-Stars," I was sure the end was near. But somehow, the networks keep coming up with more and more surreal situations to put real people in. It can only get worse with upcoming concepts like "America's Sexiest Person," "Married By America" and a sequel to the talent-less pool of wannabes who get cussed out on "American Idol." As if the screaming and hollering wasn't bad enough, day by day it just gets worse.
It was only until I caught the so-called finale of "Joe Millionaire" that I realized that television producers had at last figured out the impossible -- how to draw out 10 minutes worth of interesting conversation to two hours. Besides the fact that the show's situation was as bogus and dishonest as reality television can get, the fact that a set-up with potentially interesting dramatic outcomes, such as a woman finding out her potential mate has been lying to her about his millions for weeks, had such an un-interesting ending is proof of the failure of real people in fake situations. Joe Millionaire and his boo-to-be weren't even capable of showing fake emotions after realizing that they were "the one" or after the show offered them a million dollars to share for all their troubles.
Meanwhile, in Never-Land, America got a taste of Michael Jackson two weeks ago and obviously can't get enough of him. The so-called documentary on the King of Pop's life played over and over this weekend on cable, and two new specials are due out this week featuring this larger-than-real life character cavorting about in his not-so-real world. Jackson is so out of it, it doesn't even seem like he knows he's being exploited by the networks, vowing to tell his own side of the story -- which will turn into an exclusive interview with his dazed and confused ex-wife. Even the greatest entertainer of all time wants another fifteen minutes, and he too will use reality TV to sensationalize his life for viewers to take a peek at.
After all this, I realized just how much I like the good old-fashioned reality television with fake cops, fake robbers and a fake court or hospital after the chase scene, instead of today's contrived reality. It's just my hope that all of this over-hyped nonsense will die out soon, and we'll just get back to the "real world."
(Kazz Alexander Pinkard's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at kpinkard
@cavalierdaily.com.)
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