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Most Apalling Reality TV Show

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Most Apalling Reality TV Show

Old 02-18-03, 11:47 PM
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Most Apalling Reality TV Show

Howdy ya'll.

So we've just had the humiliation of JOE MILLIONAIRE and THE BACHELLORETTE... the SURVIVOR and FEAR FACTOR anything-for-TV crew... now we have MEET MY FOLKS and AMERICAN IDOL... but out of all of the past and present TV shows broadcast here in America (cable or network), which is the most appalling?

As awful as some of the new shows coming out are (especially ARE YOU HOT and MARRIED BY AMERICA), my vote has to go to ABC's THE WILL, coming out this summer.

From EW.com: "This more-than-morbid premise gets family members competing game-show style for their inheritance -- as their wealthy still-living relative judges their efforts."

I kid you not. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/commentary/0,6115,401667~3||321057|1~0~willisoneof,00.html

So what would be your nominees, and why?
Old 02-18-03, 11:51 PM
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The Nightly News

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P.S. I'd also nominate any marriage premise ... Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire and such. I don't mind using TV for dating -- it's not any worse than whoring yourself out at bar or club -- but marrying someone for sport is pretty pathetic.
Old 02-19-03, 02:48 AM
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anything that has to do with seeking someone to marry. just horrid.
Old 02-19-03, 02:52 AM
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I think "The Will" sounds very tasteless. Fighting over some guy when he is not even dead yet. urg!

Here are some reality shows that were pitched to networks ... and shot down...

I am absoluteley aghasted at this one ... This has got to be a hoax!
Flatline ... based on the movie of the same name.
Contestants get their hearts stopped and medical professionals try and revive said person.
NYDAILYNEWS LINK - towards the bottom

It would have been funny if only I had a feeling that the network executives probably considered the pitch before rejecting it.

My suggestions for a reality show -
AA - watch as a man/woman goes through Alcoholic Anonymous - watch him go through the steps, makes ammends, forms bonds, talk with other members ... in the end offer him 1 million dollars or a drink. I swear this might sell.
Old 02-19-03, 03:41 AM
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The Gluttney bowl that fox aired a bit back..

other then that I must agree with Das, the nightly local news.
Old 02-19-03, 08:20 AM
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Originally posted by das Monkey

P.S. I'd also nominate any marriage premise ... Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire and such. I don't mind using TV for dating -- it's not any worse than whoring yourself out at bar or club -- but marrying someone for sport is pretty pathetic.

This is what I would go with.


I still think Temptation Island is the best reality show to date except for Survivor. I would assume most think TI is appalling to most and that is one reason why I thought it was great.
Old 02-19-03, 09:33 AM
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Originally posted by Jackskeleton
The Gluttney bowl that fox aired a bit back..
I forgot about that one. That was a horrible show.
Old 02-19-03, 10:05 AM
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The $1.98 Beauty Pageant
Old 02-19-03, 10:11 AM
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The Real World
Old 02-19-03, 10:33 AM
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Are You Hot

Possibly the most base, degrading television ever broadcast. Makes beauty pagents look like The Kenedy Center Honors.
Old 02-19-03, 10:44 AM
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Everything except Fear Factor [Which -- i'm still wondering why -- is constantly referred to as a "reality" tv show]

As far as those reality shows promising a hook up, date or anything else...those are just pathetic and are the furthest thing from "reality" that you can get.

There's a greater chance of me coming across & eating a coagulated blood ball than ever getting into one of those situations...
Old 02-19-03, 10:49 AM
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• Quoth Rogue588 •<HR SIZE=1>There's a greater chance of me coming across & eating a coagulated blood ball ...<HR SIZE=1>


SHHHH!!!! Fox will hear you.

das
Old 02-19-03, 11:04 AM
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I think they all suck, and are merely a symptom of how voyeuristic, and attention-needy 95% of our television viewing populace is. It's funny, the same people who complain about the PATRIOT act and Ashcroft and how shopping cards track your purchases, are many of the same people who give these things such high ratings. We already have seen a few where the 'stars' don't know they're on the air [Jamie Kennedy, Scare Tactics]; it's only a couple TV seasons before they start showing 'Live from Macy's Men's Room' with hidden cameras in there, or 'Who Wants to See Bob Smith's Bedroom?' There has already been a court case saying a man was perfectly legal in videotaping under women's skirts at a mall, because since they were in public, they had no 'expectation of privacy' [to me, the fact that they were wearing clothes and, presumably, undergarments, shows they did have an expectation of privacy, at least of certain parts of their body, but hey, I can't be a judge, I'm making sense here.]

Not only are we seeing an acceptance of privacy erosion with these shows, we are seeing an attack on what some might call morals or ethics, and the family. Certainly there are situations where a traditional family model is not the best for a group, and marriage is not for anyone, but there are still many, including myself, who hold close relationships and courting/marriage as very important, and these marriage/relationship shows only weaken those bonds. I don't necessarily have a problem with people meeting on the shows, except for the aforementioned attention-hungry bimbos and himbos on the shows; while I may think the method of selection is, well, stupid [stunts and voting off], people can meet the 'man/woman' of their dreams in many different ways, but once you get out of college, it's pretty much through your workplace/s.

Now, if they had reality shows like in The Running Man, I'd watch those. 99% of these 'reality' shows aren't even real--the couple doesn't have to get married, they don't have to stay together, when walking the tightrope they have a bungee cord, etc.

On a side note, anyone see Series 7: The Contenders? My wife loves reality shows, she'll watch any group of gen-x slackers whining about each other in front of a camera, but she couldn't stand that movie. Too real, I guess. Whereas I hate reality shows; and I loved Series 7. I really don't think it's too long before that movie becomes reality.

My other pet peeves about reality shows:
1. they're not real, as mentioned above.
2. If they are real, it's reality I get every day at work--politics, back stabbing, cliques, stereotypes...I don't need ABC or FOX to show me more of it.
3. Overkill--ABC saw this with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire--people can only take so much of anything. If someone wants something, you should ration it to them so they keep wanting it, don't let them gorge, because then they'll be sick of it. But no, Hollywood, TV, the recording industry, etc, jump on the bandwagon and say Quick, let's get our 150 million or whatever before this dead horse collapses from under us, and then we'll play stupid and wonder why it died so quickly.

Ultimately most appalling, I'd say the marriage ones--maybe I'm too conservative, but I think marriage should, and can, mean something, and these shows trivialize it. Many of the other shows are simply gross [Fear Factor] or inane.
Old 02-19-03, 11:10 AM
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I don't see the correlation btwn being against the Patriot Act and invasions of privacy and enjoying shows where people willingly and voluntarily (in exchange for something, namely $$$) cede their privacy rights.
Old 02-19-03, 01:39 PM
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Originally posted by Red Dog
I don't see the correlation btwn being against the Patriot Act and invasions of privacy and enjoying shows where people willingly and voluntarily (in exchange for something, namely $$$) cede their privacy rights.
And that's fine, if that's as far as it goes. Maybe my reference to the Patriot Act was too limiting; since 9/11, there has been a justifiably huge outcry from some groups of people about citizen's privacy rights [that national database, the mailmen keeping an eye on houses, etc], and that was really my intent.
But we have already seen the shows where people's privacy is being violated, on camera, without their knowing it. True, it's nothing amazingly new [Allen Funt, anyone?], but the more they [the cameras] can get away with, the more they will eventually get away with. If we say, oh, it's okay to film this person, unknown, eing terrified of a space alien, because it's funny/'entertaining,' what's next?
If Joe Sixpack wants to prove he's an idiot, or can eat cow manure, on TV for fifty bucks [or the chance to win a million--most of these people do it for free, just to be on TV and briefly 'famous'], then that's fine. Or heck, assuming people on Jerry Springer are real, if they want to get up and say that they are having a relationship with their wife's cousin's dog or whatever, and they're ok sharing that info with millions of people, that's certainly their right. I think it's stupid, and its prevalence on TV is astonishing, but people have the right to do stupid things. But when that camera is not known to be there, we've seen where a camera is in the house [Big Brother] and where the victim doesn't know it's there [JKX, Scare Tactics]--it's not that much of a stretch to imagine the next show is where the victim doesn't know the camera is in the house [or workplace, or inside an adult bookstore, or whatever.] We as a people/society are being trained to accept these little violations of privacy, so that when a big one occurs, it'll seem like a natural progression.
I'm not some sort of tinfoil wearing, black-helicopter-seeing paranoiac; as I observe our society changing, I am becoming more libertarian and less tolerant of government or corporate intrusion. I'm also a big fan of scifi, and a major thread in classic scifi literature is the Computer or the Government or the Company that controls, or at least sees, all, public or private. And the funny thing about scifi is, most good scifi has as its root one 'if' that must occur, and given that one 'if', the rest of the storyline logically progresses.
Old 02-19-03, 09:53 PM
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All of them!
Old 02-19-03, 10:44 PM
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Every one of them!
Old 02-19-03, 10:54 PM
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How about that new Showtime Reality show that we probably can't talk about here.
Old 02-20-03, 12:31 AM
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Originally posted by das Monkey

das

P.S. I'd also nominate any marriage premise ... Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire and such. I don't mind using TV for dating -- it's not any worse than whoring yourself out at bar or club -- but marrying someone for sport is pretty pathetic.
I highly agree. This is the reason why i don't like shows like the bachelor and such. and it seems that very few people hold this view.

Last edited by tanman; 02-20-03 at 12:43 AM.
Old 02-20-03, 12:37 AM
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Originally posted by Rypro 525
How about that new Showtime Reality show that we probably can't talk about here.
And what pray tell is that?
Old 02-20-03, 01:01 AM
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Road Rules and Real World
Old 02-20-03, 04:13 PM
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'are you hot' has to be the worst...

and this season of the real world ...yuck!

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