Reality TV

July 14, 2009April 18, 2020

Reality job shows hype the drama a bit too much

A couple of cable channels have shows on that show people doing jobs that can be dangerous. The History Channel has Ice Road Truckers and Ax Men while Discovery Channel has Deadliest Catch. The shows are interesting because you get to see a job maybe you never knew existed and the people who do them. Too bad the shows try to create drama more often than it really happens.

The narrator breathlessly describes the scene and then it turns out not to be as dangerous as hyped. On an episode of a new show Deep Sea Salvage, on the History Channel, the task was moving a beached barge back into the water but it was too long for the standard technique – it could sling shot into the canal, slam into other barges and in the words of the narrator – cause a catastrophic disaster…. or words to that effect.

The salvage crew doesn’t use the usual technique and all goes well – no disaster….. DANG!…..

Most jobs, no matter what they are, lacks drama every day but that wouldn’t support a TV show.

October 21, 2006April 18, 2020

Project Runway at this Old House

Nifty title, no?

I just wanted to comment on 2 TV shows I watched this week in the same post. So, sue me.

Project Runway

I have really tried not to be sucked into this reality show. I am not a fashion person or even care about the fashion industry even though I do know something about the history. Simply put I watched a few episodes of the Season 3 of Project Runway because Bravo repeats it so often – talk about roadblock programing.

I did watch the finale and I was not shocked that Jeffery won. Couture isn’t about what regular people will buy and wear – it is all about art and style. Jeffery had the trendy and arty part down. A woman wearing a dress that makes her look like peppermint candy has to be arty, no? The judges on the show were looking for that and that is why Jeffery won. Why else would they ignore the fact he went over budget on his finale designs.You knew he would win the show when he won the couture challenge in episode 9.

If the criteria was about what practical people would buy and wear then it was a tie between Uli and Laura. I liked a number of their designs. Laura’s bead work was stunning and the swimsuit Uli designed was nice.

Project Runway

This Old House

One of my long time favorite shows is finally getting back to basics – at least for this season.

The crew of Norm, Tommy, Richard, Roger, and Kevin began work on renovating an East Boston duplex that was built in 1916. This time money is tight and they have a strict $250,000 budget to use on both units.

Some recent projects had moved away from the formula that made the show a great watch as money became no object. It is great seeing what someone can do with unlimited funds but that gets boring and doesn’t relate to what many regular rehabbers go through on their houses.

For example, in a scene in a recent episode of the East Boston project had Tommy, Norm, and Kevin looking at the stucco on the outside of the house and an expert told them the stucco was original. They learned that totally redoing the outside would require a good chunk of the budget and only patching the cracks would be the least expensive option. Another episode had an electrician explaining to Norm that the house still had active knob and tube wiring that would need to be replaced. The homeowner also learned that the cost of removing a street tree that has clogged up the sewer main to the house would be the same as if they just dug up the sewer and relocated it.

The other part of the return of the show is the homeowners would do some of the labor to save money.

The refocus on the basics seemed to start this past spring, when TOH helped renovate a burned out row house in Washington DC that would sold to a moderate income family through the group Mi Casa.

I remember one episode when Kevin is told the budget for that rehab would be $200,000 he mentioned they spent that on just a kitchen on another project.

It is great to see it back. Now if I can just get my local PBS station not to interrupt it for their pledge drive so I can watch whole project it might be better.

This Old House

August 7, 2005April 18, 2020

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