Oh Where oh Where Is Scripted TV, Oh Where oh Where Can It Be?

With reality television shows springing forth at the speed of sound – and multiplying as fast as rabbits in heat - the list is  endless with titles from A-Z: A Dating Game to zBlow Out.   It is very difficult to select a favorite television show these days, unless its label as a “reality show".  It seems every week a new reality show springs forth designed around someone trying to make a come back or remain in the limelight: Flavor Flav,  Flavor Of Love or Denise Richards, It's Complicated; or some unheard of trying to make a name for themselves: Jon & Kate, The Bachelor, or Wife Swap.   Apparently those that can’t act, do reality shows.   Either way, it is becoming all to familiarly boring.   Most of these shows are just cookie-cutters of one another, basically if you’ve seen one you’ve seen the other.   Ironically, knowingly being followed around by a camera crew, isn’t reality – its really just people performing for a camera at their own home or in a selected setting, footage which is clearly edited for television.  

Someone mention that the reason the boob-tube is bombarded with the screaming hollering foolishness of reality TV is because it is cheaper to produce than scripted television.   What the heck?!  Just because some producers are too cheap to open their wallets does that mean viewers must subscribe to cable or satellite just to see a television series, which is only there in re-run syndication?  Although there seems to be an unbelievable market for the annoyance of  fist fights, hair pulling, cursing, and name calling; Why can’t they air series that speak to the remaining viewing audience in ways that have an entertaining engaging plot or storyline instead of being  reminiscence of a Jerry Springer smack-down episode.   There are a few scripted-series on the air, but clearly reality shows outnumber them hands down.  Its as though the Writers are still on strike, and they’re throwing anything at the viewers.   And what’s being pitched isn’t worth the 30-60 minutes it fills the screen on a weekly basis;  just 5 to 10 minutes into one of these reality shows gives one a great appreciation for books.   Reading is fundamental and an easy way to escape reality,  reality TV that is.
Stay-tuned for additional installments.