[The_Victor]

I think the FCC should be brought in to look at this stuff, it is getting so out of hand that pretty soon that the game show/reality genre will started feed on itself ..(or already has)

The FCC!? What the H for? Reality television is an oxymoron, as are the boneheads watching it. I think you're right that the entire genre will implode as people realize that the "reality" is staged. This is just another TV fad that will be gone when the public tires of it.

[ewing]

Yes, but some of these shows like Survivor are passing themselves off as real game shows and the proders so obivously mess with the outcomes..

[discostu]

Boneheads watching it is a self-contradiction? Hmmm.

As a big fan of reality TV (especially the mean spirited stuff on Fox) let me tell you the genre is no where near exploding. We know it's not 100% unscripted that's why rules get explained periodically and the whole thing always revolves around a very contrived situation (that gets further contrived as the show goes along). But it's FUN. For one thing these "plots" have only been rehashed a few dozen times rather than the hundreds and hundreds of times the standard TV plots have been rehashed. Real people are innately more interesting than fictional characters, even if they're adopting a semi-false identity for the show. And real human conflict (even in highly synthetic contrived situations) is innately more exciting than fictional conflict (as a friend of mine who writes for Hollywood put it: everybody knows you're not going to blow up the Enterprise; people, like Darva Conger, might really have their lives disassembled on reality TV).

So far reality TV fairly consistently draws better rating than fictional TV and is cheaper for the network to make. It's even spread past the networks, look at Junkyard Wars (my absolute favorite show), Monster Garage, The Ship (a couple people almost died on that one), Trading Spaces (one of the most popular shows on cable today). It's bigger than you think, and here to stay.