How REAL is Big Brother 6????

Reality TV is a fact of life currently. It is a way for TV networks to avoid producing actual programing and it is cheap for them as well.

I admit that I do watch a couple of the shows. One is The Amazing Race and the other is Survivor. The rest of the crop is either all about desperate dating or making someone with no real talent famous for 15 minutes.

The largest unkept secret is that reality TV is not unscripted as they advertise. Most are taped weeks before you see them and themes or story lines are worked out either in general before the show tapes or as the show is produced. The editing process then creates the drama from what is really a boring thing to watch in the raw. In some cases the participants are “guided” into doing what the producers think will make good TV.

Case in point is the show Big Brother on CBS. Unlike most of the reality shows, it is live one night a week and the 13 week season is in real time – that is what you watch in the taped segments happened since the last live show. The show is aired 3 nights a week so two showings (Tuesday and Saturday) are clip shows from the few days before the show.

Logically, one would assume the highlights you see and the drama you conclude from what you see is what is really happening. With Big Brother that is not the case.

How do I know?

Because unlike other reality shows, CBS allows you to view the house guests (aka Hamsters) via a live video stream. Now the video feed isn’t always available. It is shut down when crucial segments of the show are taped – like a competition or if important information is talked about. You also don’t get to see the hamsters diary remarks until they show up in the show. You do get to see and hear a good portion of what passes for life in the house. You find out what the actual story line is and when you compare to the clip shows on the network, one can tell quickly what the producers are doing.

The prime example is how the two main factions in the house are portrayed. This was particularly evident in Week 5 with the eviction of Kaysar.

One faction led by Maggie included April, Ivette, Beau, and Jennifer. In week 5 James and Sarah double crossed Kaysar and joined Maggie’s group.

The second faction was led by Kaysar and included Howie, Janelle, and Rachel..

If you watched only the network version one would think that the Kaysar group were nasty people, that Kaysar had broken promises, and the Maggie group were the good guys needing the audience support. The main reason for this view is that the founder of the group Eric, voted off the previous week, is getting the royal treatment by CBS. They decided to pick him as their champion or main story of the season.

If you had the video feed you would be able to tell that the CBS version was a complete lie.

Maggie’s group are the nasty ones. While they sat around all week talking smack about the other side, Kaysar and his group were not doing that. They were trying to have some fun while he was still in the house. Maggie picked Kaysar out of revenge while letting the real enemy James off the hook. In fact, this week, Maggie and company now know that James is the real enemy.

April and Ivette are two of the worst people I have ever met. They never have anything nice to say about anyone and a lot of the comments Ivette said about Kaysar in the feeds were about as racist as one can get.

The network audience is never given a clue how the real dynamic in the house works or how real the hamsters are.

So much for reality.

P. S. A site that summarizes the live BB feed and offers commentary is Dingo’s Hamster Watch