Has reality TV gone too far?

(Un)Reality television has made a significant boom since around the turn of the centuary with the advent of shows like Big Brother, American Idol, Popstars, Britains Got Talent, America's Next Top Model and the such amassing to high ratings and cheaply produced and inevitable dire tv. The idea of "reality tv" is to televise life, or some form of, in a "real" view of things, with Big Brother it was seemingly a social experiement that was telelvised to see the outcomes in a confined space in which mixed multi-cultural people to see how the reacted with each other and what friendships and rivalries would occur. This would seem fine (and was fine ...  Read the complete review

The blatant exploitation of Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Freaks was a step too far for me. Putting someone up on stage in front of millions, with a bipolar condition, isn't funny. Its made all the worse because all of those people in the audience who grimaced when she first came out on stage are now saying 'I told you so, people like that cant be famous', why she was allowed on stage in the first place? Sadly we wanted to see a grotesque woman destroyed and we did. Talent means attractive, ugly means Susan Boyle. The days of the Ken Dodd's of the world making their name are over. We don't want our celebrities to be like us is the prevailing attitude. What good is that? ...  Read the complete review

Possibly the bottom of a very large barrel was scraped last night with "Surviving Gazza", a Channel 4 "documentary" following, literally at times, the family of Paul Gascoigne as they attempt to help him through the struggles of his battle with alcoholism. You have to wonder about thie motives of people who appear in reality TV shows, which effectively last nights installment was. By and large, it's for financial or personal gain. This was no different I am certain. This crass and intrusive documentary managed to invade a personal world of a family and gloss it up for the cameras, which made for utterly sobering and shocking viewing. ...  Read the complete review

I was scanning through the TV channels the other day and was amazed at the nature of the shows that were on offer. The ubiquitous Big Brother seemed to be on a number of channels providing almost round the clock coverage (I’m including the sky coverage here as well) presumably so that you can tune in at 3.48am and watch people sleeping, through night vision film on the off chance that someone may sneeze, fart or show a nipple. But that in its own right would be tolerable, but competing with it was a show called “My Breasts or My Life”, “Jade’s Salon” and a couple of fly on the wall shows about Footballers. All of this prompted me to question what it was we find so ...  Read the complete review

The main craze started after Big Brother series one was first aired on television. And with a huge media frenzy bringing it to everyones attention it wasn't long before other programme makers cottoned on to the idea. Now in today's television era we are being swamped with such programmes, The worst offender being "The reality show" which was aired on channel 5 in which all the contestants were chosen for the line up because they had all previously been on reality shows! (very poor excuse of a programme). Its not that i don't like these sort of programmes, like most people i get quite drawn into allot of them, particularly big brother (Lisa to win, ha ...  Read the complete review