What is supposed to be the ...
Question: What is supposed to be the point of reality TV? I mean, you have people competing in cooking, skating, decorating, dancing, dating. To me, it is all about bringing out the worst traits in people. Like
Unanimous, which I only managed to watch 10 minutes of before turning it off. Where does it end? When they run out of things for people to compete in? Will reality TV ever go away?
Answer: Unanimous really is the lowest of the low. There's no excuse or justification for that one. But for many others, whether exotic adventures like
Survivor and
Amazing Race, or competitions like
America's Next Top Model,
Project Runway,
Dancing with the Stars,
The Apprentice and, of course, the blockbuster
American Idol, what we're really talking about here is a modern twist (with heightened soap-opera elements) on the old-fashioned game show. Some of these are to my taste, many aren't. (I have no use for the "celeb-reality" genre, for instance, and they don't pay me enough to sit through
Real Housewives of Orange County or most cable dreck.) But there's nothing inherently objectionable about the spectacle of watching everyday people be challenged in remarkable ways in hopes of winning a grand prize, whether it's money or fame. As with most things on TV, some are simply done better than others. And then shows like
Unanimous come along and make you despair of the entire industry, if not the human race.
