Real Reality TV

Showing that I indeed have an amazing grasp of the obvious, I believe that the only reality entertainment that exists on television is sporting events ...

Where else do you have real people in a real setting that sees them conduct their profession with a real and quantifiable result?

That is one of many reasons why I truly love sports as programing content.

We all have our preferences. For my tastes, there is no better team competition than England's FA Cup, where even the local pub's eleven has a chance to dream the dream. My second choice would be the National Hockey League's Stanley Cup. That's two months of compressed intensity that, frankly, more sports fans would be refreshed by experiencing. Rounding out my top three would be the World Series, even though Major League Baseball --- like the NFL and NBA --- conveniently ignores that the rest of the world either doesn't field teams or their teams have no chance to compete.

The World Cup of soccer --- a true global competition --- and the Olympics are in a different category. They happen every four years. When it's their time, though, there's no better combination of pagentry and excellence in true competition.

The most intense rivalry in the sporting world has got to be the Ashes, when England and Australia meet on the cricketing pitch for a series of five-day matches that, every two years, spans the entire summer. No other sport exists where two nations' creme-de-la-creme capture and convey the pride of their populace and sustain it for such an extended period of time.

I'll surely write more about sports in the future, because it's a perfect stage for all that exists within the human spirit.

Contrast that with what the television industry calls 'reality' shows.

They're degrading. They're contrived. They're dumb.

These shows basically derive their popularity by demeaning their participants in one manner or another. Sure, they wrap their formats in exotic settings or cynical challenges of endurance and then season them with filthy lucre and say they're giving an opportunity for normal people to realize an otherwise unachievable reward.

What they're really doing is peddling low-cost, low-brow programing at the expense of everyone else. Why do I say that? Because those programing budgets could be doing much more good somewhere else. I'm not suggesting that we be forced to watch opera, ballet and round-table forums every other day. I am suggesting, though, that there are certainly enough creative programing ideas being rejected because they don't pander to the knee-jerk gratification that these 'reality' shows generate.

I'm definitely not part of the politically correct crowd. I think South Park is the best satirical comedy available right now. I look for some sort of distinction between the wickedly clever (even if it might miss the mark sometime) and the hard-of-thinking. Right now, there are precious few of the former --- including The Office in the UK and, of course, The Simpsons everywhere --- and 'way too many of the latter.

I guess we can only hope that the trend will run its course and, like disco, have those who got caught up in it look back and wonder, 'what were we thinking?'

The answer is, they weren't. And yet again, the snake oil salesmen were there to reap the profits and hightail it out of town. They did nothing illegal, so they would call their profits fair game.

Perhaps, but I say it's the wrong game. I'll stick with sports.