The other evening, I joined my wife in watching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and it really got me thinking about all this reality TV that is bombarding us these days. I think the proliferation of all the reality television is really telling us that the Entertainment studios in Hollywood (and other places) are just tapped out of good, creative programming ideas and they now need to use the life of the everyday man to create sellable content (to advertisers and to audiences). The argument that the reality shows are good programming ideas just does not hold water. Can you really tell me that “Joe Millionaire 2”, not to mention the original “Joe Millionaire”, is really good programming? The subject matter of all the reality television programs is quite diverse, ranging from Survivor and Big Brother to Trading Spaces and While You Were Out on TLC. I am waiting for the super, steel cage match reality show where the crew from “Trading Spaces” invades the “Big Brother” house, who is inhabited by the previous winners of “Big Brother”, “Survivor”, and ABC’s “Bachelor/Bachelorette” series, and they then compete with the “Fab 5” from “Queer Eye” to fix up the living space. Now that would be a ratings bonanza!
