Reality Shows

I will admit that I started watching reality programing when it was brand new.  I watched the first few seasons of The Real World on MTV (This was back when they still actually played music videos), I caught the first season of Survivors, The Osbornes and many others. My wife got into the VH1 Celebreality fad for a bit, so I caught more of those shows than I would have wished. And there was a lot of really, really bad stuff that came out of that. More and more though I am finding those shows just don't draw me in.

I am proud to say I never once have seen an episode of Jersey Shore.

I am familiar with what is out there for Reality TV.

The only reality show I actually have the desire to catch every episode of is Face Off. If you are unfamiliar with the show, it is a competition show where talented make-up artists have to come up with original character designs every week following all manner of themes. The main reason I love this show is because it focuses on what to me is about the most important aspects of life: creativity and talent. Week after week we get to see what these truly talented individuals can put together in just three days. It is a truly inspiring show as it rewards those who have talent and are truly creative and you really do not see that enough in reality shows.

I am really looking forwards to what looks to be a follow up show with the same basic concept as Face Off, but with making puppets. The show is Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge. If it follows the Face Off style of competition, we are in for something really awesome. Both are SyFy shows.

Another Syfy show, Opposite Worlds, is the actual inspiration for this post and for all the wrong reasons. Opposite Worlds is a really horrible, uninteresting, boring as it gets show. The idea is you have two competing teams, one living in the future and one in the past as a social experiment to see which group preforms the best. It is hard to explain as the set up feels rather harshly thrown together. You need to see it to understand just how weak the concept really is. The first problem is that they have to add way too much unneed filler in each episode to get it to the hour length. Most of what you watch is lacking any real substance. Then it sinks to the level of relying on focusing on a-hole characters and what really feels like forced drama. So instead of giving us anything of value, it goes after all the things that make reality shows so crappy. I can't see it lasting beyond the first season.

I find it best to just avoid most reality shows now days. There are very few that are worth watching.