Unreal reality T.V.

Television sucks today.

I'm sure this isn't much of a revelation. And it’s not that I’ve just come to this conclusion overnight. It just pains me to watch it anymore. Even the more so-called “sophisticated” networks are jumping onto the lowest common denominator bandwagon. And sadly, as I scan through my 386 channel choices, I’m finding myself relying more and more heavily on Turner Classic Movies or Fox Movie Channel just to escape from reality AND reality T.V.

I recall that, as a kid, the smart shows always seemed to be the ones that got cancelled first. I would always hear about these mystical “Neilson Ratings” and wondered who the trailer park couch potatoes were that got lucky enough to be determining what I would watch on T.V. Only rarely did they get it right. Most times, the popular shows of then would hardly drum up a viewer in reruns today, and I constantly see them in the discount bin of DVD’s at the local stores.

And then, just when you thought it couldn’t sink lower, Reality T.V. stepped up to the tube. Most people think that Survivor started the trend…I think it was The Real World on MTV, but I could be forgetting any that may have been earlier…that’s just the one I can remember the furthest back. But even after a couple of seasons of that, it began to be revealed that much of the “drama” of this and similar programs were staged for increased viewer enjoyment.

Now these shows have mutated like a horrible virus that can no longer be controlled with simple antibiotics! I will admit that the producers of these shows are truly catering to our basic human fascination with disaster – we’ve become “rubber-necking” consumers, waiting to see the car crash, the fist fight, the airplane drop out of the sky, the bomb going off.

The line has become horribly blurred. Because of technology and the magic of high-speed computers, we haven’t a clue whether what we are seeing on the screen is real or Memorex (in the form of CGI, Paintbox and several other high-end editing and morphing programs). It sort of reminds me of the conspiracy theories that plagued the seventies about how the trips to the moon were actually being staged in Hollywood by the government to fool the Russians into believing that the U.S. had conquered the Space Program!

How is it that the participants on these shows are all “experts?” That REALLY drives me nuts, and there’s no escaping it, no matter what the venue!!! Obviously, EVERYBODY who auditions at American Idol is an expert performer and none of the three judges have a clue what they are talking about (although, after seeing some of the kids that end up in the final 12, I usually wonder that myself). ALL the men and women singing and dancing for You’re the One that I Want can sing and dance circles around professional choreographers and expert producers, who couldn’t run a production of Grease if their lives depended on it – can’t wait to hear what the rejects say about Olivia Newton-John when she guest judges next week!

Tonight, Cole and I were catching up on some of our back-logged TiVo’s of Design To Sell and Sell This House and were amazed at the number of homeowners who, of their own free will and accord, sought after these people’s assistance to sell their homes, yet when suggested, were staunchly against the changes! Hello?! You want to put your house up for sale?! Then you technically no longer live in it, dummies! Clear out your crap, spruce up the rooms and sell the damn thing!

Of course, in the minds of the producers of these shows, if you aren’t yelling at the T.V. screen, then they aren’t doing their jobs right. That’s why the first several weeks of Idol are so hard to watch for me. I don’t care for those “train wrecks” (as a matter of record, that’s what Cole and I call them each time they grace our 60” big screen). Once we can get through the garbage and get to the real talent, then my frustration changes to why my favorite performer gets voted off each week (see! I’m no expert!). Except, tell that to Jennifer Hudson, GOLDEN GLOBE WINNER! You go girl!

All of this is really symptomatic of our society today. We have more information available to us than ever before. I can conjure up a term paper in a matter of hours, just because of the mass of knowledge I can collect in minutes using the internet. In high school, if you didn’t own your own set of encyclopedias, it was several trips to the library, checking out 4-5 books just to come up with a passable paper.

And yet, why do I feel like the more information available to us, the less intelligent the public is becoming. The masses are fed their knowledge through 30-second sound bites and all-of-a-sudden we’ve become experts. We get our “facts” through poll numbers and statistical information. Funny how those polls are different and vary greatly, depending on the expert you are listening to, the network you are watching or the news source you are reading. The “lemming factor” just gets more and more prevalent.

Don’t know what a lemming is? GOOGLE it! LOL

Look out kids…there’s a cliff up ahead.