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Volume XIII
Issue 7
July 2010

'Reality-Based' Programs
Dominate New TV Season
By Rona Rivers
Entertainment Correspondent

(Hollywood, Calif., Aug. 27, 2003) -- It's unreal. Voyeuristic Americans will be able to tune into the lives of others every night of the week in the fall program lineups announced this week by the major television networks.

"We go with what works," explained Sissy Boombah, CBS professional spokesperson. "When 20 million or more viewers tuned into our groundbreaking Survivor every week during the 2000 summer season, we knew we were onto something. Reality-based television is the most cost-effective programming we've ever discovered, and it's here to stay."

The only challenge faced by the networks is coming up with new twists on the same basic premise -- a group of people put into a restricted situation, competing for a large cash prize. Contestants are eliminated, one by one, by a vote or by other means, until only the winner remains.

Social scientists have questioned the "reality" of these programs from the beginning. In an environment completely monitored by cameras, they have pointed out, the "performance factor" significantly alters the behaviors observed.

"Many of these contest participants are simply preening to become future media stars," observed Dr. Socrates "Soc" I. O'Pathe, world renowned behavioral scientist. "They know that the odds of winning the contest are not in their favor, so the event itself becomes a secondary consideration."

New "reality" programs scheduled this season span quite a range within the limited scope of their basic format. They include presidential politics, with Fox's Primary Instincts; socio-economic inequality, in CBS's Going Homeless; and religious life, through ABC's Cloistered!

"One thing we know for sure," concluded O'Pathe, "American television networks have never lost money by overestimating the market for mindless entertainment."

PRIMARY INSTINCTS
(Fox - Sundays, 8-9 p.m. EST)

Fox is pinning its hopes for a hit replacement for the departed Sunday mainstay, The X-Files, on Primary Instincts.

The program will feature a group of 16 political hopefuls who have announced plans to make a 2004 presidential bid. Candidates will be placed on a large, uninhabited south Pacific island, assigned territories and armed with paintball guns. They will then have six weeks to find, stalk and splatter each other, not unlike actual political campaigns.

Contestants will be free to form any number of temporary alliances during the contest. In the end, however, there can be only one.

Each contestant who sustains a "fatal hit," in the judgment of Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, will be eliminated from the contest, although they will all receive some fine parting gifts. Ventura, himself a declared candidate, was offered the position of contest moderator and color commentator after he was barred from the competition. Fox felt that Ventura, as an ex-Navy SEAL and professional wrestler, would hold an unfair advantage over his amateur counterparts.

"What the hell," Ventura said, "I'll still have a ball watching these wusses play war."

Upping the stakes, each participant has agreed not to run for election if he or she does not emerge victorious from the island. The winner will receive a handsome $2 million Fox contribution to her or his campaign fund.

"Finally, presidential politics is being expressed in terms that will get the average American voter interested," said Tess Pattern, head of Fox programming development. "By the time the program ends, the winner will already be a household name."

GOING HOMELESS
(CBS - Thursdays, 7-8 p.m. EST)

The contrast between America's "haves" and "have-nots" will be showcased in CBS's Going Homeless.

The series, to be starkly taped in black and white for its eight-week run, will feature five young urban professionals competing for a grand prize no self-respecting yuppie could resist, a $1.5 million luxury home.

"We thought that prize would add some delicious irony to the series," said Buddy Kanusparadyme, CBS spokesman.

Even the losers won't go away empty-handed. Each contestant who lasts at least four weeks will receive a brand spanking new Lexus sport utility vehicle as a consolation prize. They will also get to keep their shopping carts and any scavenged articles to which they have become particularly attached as mementos of their time on the mean streets.

CBS has secured a scenic, 150-foot stretch along the Hudson River where the participants will make their "homes." Each will enter the contest with nothing but the clothing on his or her back and a shopping cart with four fully functioning wheels. They will then be free to scour the dumpsters of New York to fill their carts with materials they need to build their shelters and sustain their daily lives.

Each contestant will be accompanied at all times by a cameraman who will also serve as an enforcer. Any participant who violates the strict rules of the competition, such as using a cell phone to place a food order at a favorite deli, will be reported and disqualified.

At the end of the series run, the remaining contestants will be judged on the quality of the homeless lives they have made for themselves. The decision of former President Jimmy Carter, a longtime Habitat for Humanity volunteer, will be final.

CLOISTERED!
(ABC - Tuesdays, 7-8 p.m. EST)

The shenanigans of a dozen fraternity brothers attempting to live like monks for seven weeks is expected to be the big ABC hit of the new season.

"We interviewed hundreds of callous, hard-drinking, womanizing frat boys for this show," reported Dee Dee Douda, ABC marketing specialist, "and these are the baddest of an extremely bad bunch."

An entire top floor on a wing of the monastery will be set aside for the new "brothers," who will be required to live exactly as the real Franciscan friars. They will wear the garb of the monks and participate in all regularly scheduled prayer and other activities. They will abstain from alcohol consumption and, most importantly, the pleasures of the flesh, throughout the duration of the contest. The capper may come during the final week, when all participants will be additionally required to observe a vow of silence.

What will the winners get for such a display of self-control? Each contestant who makes it through the experience without breaking a monastery rule will receive every frat boy's dream -- an all expense paid two weeks in Las Vegas and a lifetime supply of the brew of their choice.

"For a fraternity member," concluded Douda, "it just doesn't get any better than this."

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