Confessions of a Reality Television Addict: Creativity is What Counts
Posted: Sunday, February 04, 2007
by Danny Davids
Awhile back I wrote an article about reality television. At the time, I commented on how the “non-scripted" shows weren’t an accurate reflection on reality, and what real life would be like if we were all on the ultimate reality show. Oh sure, I admitted I watched “Nashville Star" and “American Idol" and “The Apprentice", but that was it. After all, these shows don’t do reruns, so if you miss the first few episodes you don’t get the inside jokes or the snide comments, or understand why Kellye and Smitty are so ga-ga over each other, or appreciate the reason behind the all-our brawl between Derik and Karson (VCRs and DV- Rs notwithstanding, of course). Comfortable with venting my spleen on the subject, I settled back into my television-watching schedule, got caught up in the hype of the new fall TV shows (especially “Heroes"), and pretty much forgot about reality TV.
Oh, sure, television stations have been showing four, six, ten, and more hours of various TV series for years now. The SciFi Channel is notorious for showing horror movie marathons around Halloween, and regularly features back-to-back-to-back episodes of series like “The Twilight Zone" and “The Outer Limits". The shows were usually anthology types, where each episode is a stand-alone story and you don’t need to know what happened in one episode to fully enjoy the next. If you got up and walked away during the middle of the marathon, it was no big deal.
I don’t know if viewership dropped during those marathons, or if the TV executives started wising up. Either way, this past holiday season I saw marathons of shows that were intended to be viewed sequentially, from first episode to last. One network rebroadcast all of last season’s “24"; the BBC network showed the first half-dozen episodes of the first season of the new “Doctor Who" series. And Bravo aired last season’s “Top Chef", a reality cooking show.
Yes, I enjoy food. But I don’t go to restaurants where people combine food items in ways I can’t comprehend, put bite-sized pieces of the finished product on a huge plate decorated with sauces and herbs, and pay $40-$50 for the privilege of nibbling on it.
So why would I want to watch a show like this?
It’s a standard reality TV premise served up with food-related themes. Contestants participate in two competitions each episode, a short “ Quickfire Challenge" where the winner gains immunity, and the regular challenge where the loser gets to pack his or her knives and go home. As I’ve stated, I know nothing about gourmet cooking, so the majority of the ingredients used in their concoctions I’ve never even heard of. I can’t appreciate the differences between the various spices, or why one is used in a particular recipe when another is not. I couldn’t eat half of what was prepared, since seafood dishes are very popular on the show and I’m allergic to some and won’t eat the rest. Heck, I don’t even know what wine to have with dinner because I don’t drink! I’m a gourmet food connoisseur…NOT!
So why would I want to watch a show like this?
It’s been said that we make fun of what we don’t understand. And that’s the way I started out with the first episode I saw (which was actually the second or third in the series). I made side jokes to myself about the way the chefs dressed, chucked at the looks on their faces when one challenge required them to use snack food items purchased from a vending machine to create a gourmet treat, and snickered at their failed attempts to succeed in their various challenges (not that I could do any better, of course). And while cracking jokes was entertaining to me, it certainly wasn’t a reason to watch a series that made no sense from start to finish.
So why would I want to watch a show like this?
I finally figured it out several nights ago. I was discussing the program with my wife, who also can’t figure out why I enjoy watching it. We tossed out our theories about food and gourmets and snobbery and voyeurism and a few other options. And then one of us mentioned something about the creative ways these people have found to accomplish their tasks.
That’s when the light bulb went on.
I don’t care for the shows that open the door on a person’s or a family’s or a group’s personal and private lives. Total yawner. Neither do I enjoy watching the “Survivor"-class of series that depends on nothing but successful completion of physical challenges to move on to the next level. Those shows that require brainpower as well as strength, like “The Great Race", are somewhat better, but even these are fairly predictable .
“American Idol" and “Nashville Star" involve music, which is a big part of my life. But more importantly, there’s some strategy involved when choosing the song you’ll sing, deciding the mood to portray when you audition/perform, and attempting to “psyche out" your competition, making them perform more poorly. It takes a high level of creativity to do all those things.
And of course, there’s the dark side of creativity – the emotion.
Being a creative person myself, I know about emotions. Ask my wife, my kids, my friends. They can all tell you. I’m the one whose eyes well up during the gut-wrenching climax of a tear-jerker movie, who has to clamp my hands over my mouth to keep from doing a running commentary in the move theater, who out of nowhere blows up at the driver three cars ahead of me on the freeway because he’s being such a moronic jerk. Now, take that personality and add fifteen to it. Throw in a heaping helping of ego. Stir well and bring to a slow boil. Then sit back and watch the fireworks.
THAT is what I like about the reality shows I enjoy. “Top Chef" has some of the most emotionally high-strung people I’ve ever seen. While they try to be nice to each other, each person knows it’s a competition and everybody else has to go if he or she is going to win. Eventually those nice little exteriors start to crumble and I get to see the ugly show through. And it’s been really ugly at times, too. I think a few scenes actually had more censored words than allowable ones. Things were hot, and I’m not talking about the stovetops or the ovens. How cool is that ?!
An interesting aside to this enlightened discovery is that I no longer feel guilty when contestants put themselves in the position of being ridiculed by their fellow competitors or whoever the smarmy judge-of-the-week happens to be. These people are delusional if they think they can win at something without having any training or experience in the field they’re trying to break into. It doesn’t matter if it’s music, cooking, physical fitness, modeling, sports, or any other arena of competition. The math stays the same: Ego, plus emotion, minus a solid grasp of reality, times the number of snooty comments from the judging community, equals meltdown. On camera, no less. And I’m not going to feel pity when someone knowingly walks into a dangerous situation without preparing for it ahead of time. It’s almost like a short-term cleansing of the talent pool.
I have yet to see the final “Top Chef" episode, and I’m deliberately not checking out Bravo’s Web site. It’s not that I care which chef finally wins. It’s that I want to see firsthand how emotion and creativity unleashed fuel the fires between the two finalists. And in the end, the best chef may win. Or not. Who cares? I just want to watch the pot boil over!
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