One of the few unscripted reality shows ever was “The Osbournes.” I worked on it.
We had three and a half weeks of footage to watch per episode. In three and a half weeks of following someone around, stories emerged. Also, that cast was gold. Naturally funny and comfortable on camera.
Today, nobody can afford to just shoot for three and a half weeks. You only get four days’ worth of footage to make an episode. That isn’t long enough for a story to emerge naturally. So you plant one. You tell your camera crew where to go and what to shoot. You tell your cast to do this and that, and be sure to discuss X and Y, and make sure you also set up Z, the scene we’ll be shooting tomorrow.
So yeah, it’s scripted. But without actual lines of dialogue. It’s improv, or like an old silent movie (which were shot in the same amount of time). Writers place cast members in a scene and tell them where they’re going, not EXACTLY how to get there.
Interviews, the talking heads that pop up on screen and talk about what you just saw, are totally scripted. The questions are written by writers and the writers are looking for specific punchlines in their answers. If the cast member doesn’t say it, then they ask again and tell the cast member what to say.
I don’t know why viewers get so sore when they get confirmation that things are scripted. The point is to make entertaining TV cheap. Following the “Duck Dynasty” cast with cameras for four days would result in the most boring, incoherent show imaginable. There would be no stories with beginnings, middles and ends. How they’re doing it works. So what do you care if it’s scripted?