Topic: Which Reality Television Shows Aren't Total Suckfests?

[trapeze]

I watched a n bit of a new one last night: Naked and Afraid.

They drop an unrelated man and woman (naked) in the jungles of Borneo with nothing to survive 21 days

I had never watched this show.....My wife comes home and said it was recommended by one of her vendors....So, we turn it on. I watched about 5 minutes. I really don't care for soft porn passed off as survival. She did not like my advise as to what I would tell her vendor.

So what's next??? Two naked people attempting to "survive" is not reality TV. It was disgusting TV.

Perhaps if they had been naked porn actors? Just kidding. mrs. trapeze and I saw the ad for it and just rolled our eyes.

The thing is, all of these shows are headed in the same direction. They will end up with something like "Death Race" or "The Running Man."

[warpmine]

Politician Hunt, Washington, DC addition
Episode 1 Season 1 Now that was cool!

[Alphabet Soup]

I watched a n bit of a new one last night: Naked and Afraid.

They drop an unrelated man and woman (naked) in the jungles of Borneo with nothing to survive 21 days

Lemme guess... The dude spent the entire episode trying to convince the woman that survivalist priority #1 is to snuggle - purely for the purpose of staving off the elements.

Actually the last episode centered around him trying to convince her that it was just "shrinkage"... 

[AlanS]

If 'reality' shows would stick to the point and omit the friggin' drama, half of them might be decent.

[Pandora]

If 'reality' shows would stick to the point and omit the friggin' drama, half of them might be decent.

'Zackly.

[trapeze]

If 'reality' shows would stick to the point and omit the friggin' drama, half of them might be decent.

Ah, yes...fake drama. It insults and it sucks.

[LadyVirginia]

I posted quite a bit about Amy's Baking Company after the Gordon Ramsey failed intervention.

Sorry I missed that but I just read it now.  So funny. 

[trapeze]

Okay, well I may have found a good reality show. There is no drama...no fake or real drama...and I appreciate that because drama in a reality show is insulting.

The other thing I look for in a reality show is lack of scripting. A scripted reality show is oxymoronic and yet so many of these shows are scripted.

So, what's the show?

It's called "BBQ Pitmasters" and it is a competition show. Each show has three teams of BBQ cooks. The teams are charged with cooking two different meats within a set amount of time. They bring their own cooking equipment and their own ingredients. The competition provides the meats which are a secret until the show starts. The judging is done by champion BBQ cooks and perhaps best of all the judging is completely blind so there can be no chance of bias or favoritism. The winner of each three team challenge gets to participate in the final competition to determine the overall champion.

I like this because it's fair and it provides me with extremely interesting information about something that I have only recently gotten into myself.

I get a lot of free advice on trimming the meat, temperature selection, cooking time, etc. The only stuff that you don't get are the ingredients, the spices because that stuff is secret. So, it's a show that is of personal interest to me. It's fun to watch because there is no BS and it has lots of good information.

[benb61]

I can't stand any reality show, they insult my intelligence.  That being said, the BBQ Pitmasters show I consider a competition show and not a reality show (though I guess it actually is).  Jersey Shore, Housewives of (insert your favorite city), etc are in my opinion reality shows and not worthy of my attention.  The competition shows are of 2 categories, actual competitions that are videoed and made up competitions where guile and cunning are the real competition.  BBQ Pitmasters is the former while shows like The Great Race, Survivor, etc are the later.  The former are worthy of attention if it interests me while the latter are a waste of time because they are somewhat scripted.  But in either case if there is some fake controversy/tumult it just distracts from the competition and makes the show unworthy.

Just my 2 cents.

[LadyVirginia]

I've never watched Pitmasters.  Are the 2 meats something that can be done in the time given?  Or is tension created by offering a challenging meat or reducing the time needed?

[Predator Don]

I like watching Fathomworks and Counting cars. I love the old autos. A thought occurred to me......With the advent of our gov't spying, on everyone, I wonder if any of these companies are having issues with the IRS. I only mention it because they buy a lot of vehicles with cash......and the people who take it are on film.

I guess if the IRS were not looking at these people they are now.

[trapeze]

I've never watched Pitmasters.  Are the 2 meats something that can be done in the time given?  Or is tension created by offering a challenging meat or reducing the time needed?

I have only seen a couple of episodes so far. The 2 meats are something that can be done in the time given. The allotted time is based on the meat with the longest cook time. The purpose appears to be to test the competitors with not only a variety of meat (how to prepare) but with managing/coordinating cook time. For instance, I saw and episode where they were given a brisket point and also turkey legs. The point needed 8 hours to smoke and cook whereas the turkey leg would only need two to three hours depending on method. A totally fair competition where you win or lose based only on your own actions and decisions.

[trapeze]

I can't stand any reality show, they insult my intelligence.  That being said, the BBQ Pitmasters show I consider a competition show and not a reality show (though I guess it actually is).  Jersey Shore, Housewives of (insert your favorite city), etc are in my opinion reality shows and not worthy of my attention.  The competition shows are of 2 categories, actual competitions that are videoed and made up competitions where guile and cunning are the real competition.  BBQ Pitmasters is the former while shows like The Great Race, Survivor, etc are the later.  The former are worthy of attention if it interests me while the latter are a waste of time because they are somewhat scripted.  But in either case if there is some fake controversy/tumult it just distracts from the competition and makes the show unworthy.

Just my 2 cents.

I agree about the competition category of reality shows and I would add another subcategory, the unfair competition. Here are a couple of examples of unfair competitions:

Iron Chef - I remember watching this for the first time several years ago and I thought it was ridiculous for demanding that the chefs prepare a multi course meal with the "surprise ingredient" as a requirement in each course including desert. Frankly, I would be offended if I was ever served squid sorbet as a desert. That said, the "unfair" part was the non-blind judging of the results. It was always obvious that the judges were sucking up to the "Iron Chefs" that the guest chefs would be competing against. That, and the host would be brow-beating the other judges into agreeing with his opinion. It was also ridiculous that the chefs had only one hour to prepare this entire multi-course meal.

Design Star/HGTV Star - This is a wretched show that mrs. trapeze likes. They take about a dozen seriously messed up people who each have the notion that they can be interior design television show hosts and pit them against each other. Then they make them work together in small groups to achieve a common goal like, say, remodel a kitchen. Then they give them a ridiculously inadequate amount of time to get the project done. And then they are judged as individuals on the results of a team effort and someone is thrown off of the show. Eventually as the show progresses the contestants get to work on their own but the judges always have full knowledge about who did what when they tabulate the scores so there is a built in opportunity for bias at best and fraud at worst. I say "fraud" because I am convinced that the producers have their "winner" picked before the season begins and the other contestants are window dressing for "drama." So, the competition is completely unfair from the beginning. The contestants continuously bitch about each other and stab each other in the back and yet pretend to be "on the same team" for each episode. When this show is on I am usually deep into reading the news on the laptop but it's impossible to completely tune it out when I'm in the same room.

It is obvious that most of the producers of these shows believe that their audiences are dunces who cannot tell if a competition is fair or unfair, staged or not, etc.

[Libertas]

There is unstaged competition?   

[LadyVirginia]

Design Star/HGTV Star

This sounds like the formula for a lot of tv shows.  My daughter likes Hell's Kitchen on FOX.  It's the same thing.  They work as a team yet every week have to pick someone to kick off the team.  The really annoying part is when the participants talk to the camera and whine and cry, etc. Come on you knew what it was before you went on the show.

Forget staging -- they can do whatever they want in editing the show.  One knock against Hell's Kitchen was there was an episode in which you could see in the background a person cooking who'd been voted off the week before.

Despite all that-- Amy from Amy's Baking Company is wacko.