I've seen so much I'm going blind/And I'm brain-dead, virtually...

I just hit a major turning point in my consumption of television. I uttered the phrase:

“Reality television can just get f-cked”

I used to love Survivor. I used to love the challenges – particularly as they got more and more difficult. I loved the fact that Jeff Probst seemed to be able to recite the challenge information the same way EVERY SINGLE TIME. I loved Rob and Amber and their vicious determination to win at all costs. I converted to The Amazing Race on the strength of them…and the hippies. I used to fantasise about being in the kind of shape required to undertake those challenges well.

I also admire the way that, in face of falling ratings, Survivor has done very little to alter their format. “Bugger you, we’ve made squillions,” they seemed to be saying to the networks. “Put us on at 11pm, see if we care”.

I’ve even been known to watch more than one episode of Big Brother, and certainly have watched enough of it this season to know who is who and whether I “like” them. I must agree with Ben Elton however, that there is now very little consideration of what it means to put 40 cameras in a house and record peoples’ every move – and what it says about our privacy in the future is more than a little worrying. However, I think that the Big Brother/Survivor/Amazing Race contestants have some degree of agency in pursuing their course to whatever kind of fame it is they seek to achieve.

What I really hate about reality television is ambulance chasing “real life stories”, whether it’s police or surf clubs or hospitals or, deliver us all, saving babies.

The advertisement that tipped me over the edge was for the new series of Medical Emergency on Channel 7 which will “document” real life emergencies. The tag-line noted that “they are real, you can tell by the look on their faces” (cue shot of tear-streaked face of eight year old girl with blonde pigtails).

I don’t get the public obsession with these shows. So we’re not willing to put up with three minutes of conversation with our mothers/grandparents/neighbours about the terrible things happening in their lives but we’ll watch an hour’s worth of some anonymous person’s suffering because it has a tinkly piano soundtrack and a B-list celebrity host? Have we really become so very disconnected that we’re not interested in the plight of those around us but glued to the story of “baby Andrea” or whoever it is this week?

Saving Babies in particular irks me. I am a mother, so one might argue I’m inclined to feel all gooey about babies*. What I hate, and I mean HATE, is the premise of this show – that “every story is a good news story”. Not only is this a gross distortion of the potential outcomes for parents of very ill children and their experience, it is also an unfair distortion. If your child dies, what is to say that your story is any less worth telling and recording? I have to wonder how many of these stories are recorded and discarded because the child is unable to recover from their massive health issues?

Unlike people who choose to participate in game shows in order to win money, those shown on Border Security or Police Files: Unlocked or the like are much less likely to have enough time and space to choose how they participate – a point not quite deconstructed by the death of a Big Brother contestant’s father recently.

I know, this has all been said before, and it’s not that I hate reality television per se. But I miss fictionalised drama. I miss networks taking a chance on developing local content that extends beyond the endless predictability of the mangled flesh of car accidents and people getting pissy when arrested for drink-driving. I miss networks buying quality drama and quirky comedy from other networks. Dammit, I miss The West Wing.

/end rant


* and sometimes I do.