Extremists are the only types of families they use on this show.

Very good post, talijiquan12. That's a strong analysis of reality TV.

but I wondered if the show always set up families who had drastically different lifestyles and beliefs, and from the looks of this comment, they do.

I suspect so. It only took me a couple of episodes to cotton on to this.

If you're going to control situations, make tons of edits and manipulate the footage, and create scenarios that lend themselves to drama, why not simply write fiction?

It could be that it's less expensive than hiring actors and budgeting a regular TV series. It would be worth researching the history of Reality TV to find out more here. At any rate, this "reality TV" sells. On one level, maybe people like the notion that it's real. Although with shows like this, when the whole premise is based around a synthesized situation, it's more like a science (or social science) experiment of sorts. Maybe some of the people working on these shows would rather be writing fiction. So much comes down to money. On another level, as long as there's conflict and drama, people are still sucked in and don't even really care of it's real or not. The IMDb boards for this and other reality shows can attest to that. At any rate, this is what is selling to people right now and it's probably less expensive to produce. But I am tired of flipping through the cable channels and find that, at any given time, at least a full third of them, if not much more, seem to be constantly broadcasting reality shows.


[quote[The problem with shows like this is that they exist in some limbo between fiction and non-fiction; you get the contrived fakiness of poorly constructed fiction, and the boredom and lack of sensationalism of real life. What a crappy mix. [/quote]

To be blunt, I think the biggest problem with these shows is that they are cheap sensationalistic nonsense with little real value (especially if they are fake while purporting to be "reality"). The literary equivalent would be tabloid papers and celebrity gossip magazines. I would add that, ironically, and in spite of the fact that reality shows seem to be the current or at least fad form, works of complete fiction (i.e. those billed as such) tend to do a better job of reflecting on the human experience/condition than these "reality" shows, which are inevitably phony at so many levels.

Once again, a good analysis on your part. I hope my thoughts don't get in the way of it.

'Irregardless' is not a word

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