American Reality TV

[40oz]

Half the people I know can watch it, the other half despise it. I was wondering what the rest of the world thought about it. I oughta imagine its a hilarious joke right?

Last year I was watching the UK version of Gordon Ramsay's kitchen nightmares, and the show is actually very educational, the way he critiques the food, the quality of the service, and the cleanliness of the restaurant, and each restaurant has a very unique issue that isn't obvious on the surface, but Ramsay can usually sniff it out within a few days just by observing and asking some questions here and there. It really highlights his expertise and business management skills.

I just today noticed Gordon Ramsay's kitchen nightmares US version is now on Netflix. I've watched 4 episodes now and its making me headdesk. Every episode is a scripted cookie cutter mess. Every person on the show has some kinda tragic emotional background, every restaurant has the same blatantly obvious problems; overpriced menu, meals prepared waaaay incorrectly, staff constantly fighting among each other, and other general sitcom-like chaos. Its impossible for the show to have such an impressive string of empty hollow shell character-like restaurant staff so many episodes in a row that are REAL and totally NOT ACTORS.

My wife likes it but for me the personalities of the people on the show are so paper thin, and Gordon Ramsay is a memetic noise maker with nothing but extreme negative responses to everything instead of being instructional, and somehow at the end of every episode the restaurant makes a dramatic turn around. You can tell especially because the background music flicks off from terrifying suspense, to happy harmony.

Its offensive to me, really.

[geo]

There are a lot of flavors to reality television. If you like Ice Road Truckers, wild men living in the wilderness with a camera, competition shows or people with accents getting into drama that doesn't matter to the outside world. Then there are reality shows that recreate things that really happened and have a disclaimer at the end of the show. Oh and don't forget DEA, Cops and Jail. They have their own genre of reality, but since there are no characters beyond a narrator, people forget how real they are.

Gordon's has been on Netflix for a while, it was quite watchable, but really its still trash. Its half reality show half fix up show, which is different than a fix it show. It for damn sure isn't a cooking show. In fact his cooking shows are becoming rare. Even Master Chef and Hell's Kitchen aren't cooking shows, one is a straight up competition and the other is a reality competition which is its own genre. I've been forced to watch all 3 including Master Chef Canada.

I've managed to only food poison myself with scallops and no one else. I've never fucked up rosoto either, but I've never had to cook either for 40 - 50 people per night with someone yelling at me.

Its all just entertainment and everyone has a different taste. Its all cheap to create shovelware for TV networks to have marathons of during the day.

[Clonehunter]

I'm offended by the actions of global terrorists, but different folks different strokes.


The early seasons of the US show always seemed rather off, but as it went on they became believable, especially when a number of the episodes noted that the restaurants ended up failing anyways for one reason or another. Usually digging up local newspapers proves various occurrences on the show as less of an acting script and something more real. Amy's Baking Company comes to mind, as they were all over their local news defending themselves after Gordon visited and abandoned them because they were too far gone in the head to make a turn around.

However, out of all of the US reality tv shows, I always found US KN to be one of the more grounded and realistic shows. To be fair, some people just are that shallow, and as such the show isn't far off the mark. I've done work (electrical work, not cooking work) in some restaurants over the years, including some shabby ones, and some people are just like that. Others in the food business tend to have stories of their past experiences featuring people who seem to pop out of a Kitchen Nightmare's like scenario. But yes, the UK version of the show is better.

[geo]

Oh yeah fun fact, I think only 6 restaurants that were on Kitchen Nightmare are still open. If you have to call in Gordon for an episode, its probably too late.

[Hoodie]

American Entertainment is horrible nowadays. I can't really say anything though, I'm just 19. But everything I'm supposed to like is fucking ridiculous and I hate all of it so *HEAVY SHRUG*

[Doom_Dude]

I can't be bothered to watch any of that reality bullshit. Ramsay can go suck on a ketchup bottle.

[scalliano]

So, the X Factor (presumably American Idol in the States) started back on TV here in the UK on Saturday. I don't watch it, but I've been off work this last few days and today there was the usual daytime TV recap while I was eating my lunch. What I noticed was that every entry that made it through the audition had some sort of heart-wrenching sob-story attached to them. So, raw singing talent isn't enough anymore? Apparently, the list of prerequisites has extended to having at least one dead parent/sibling/best friend, otherwise Cowell and his cohorts won't look twice at you.

Alternatively, you could just show up in a black chiffon top and PVC skirt. And that was one of the blokes ...

[geo]

I saw the last season or the previous season of X Factor UK. Its been canceled in the US and I think American Idol was too. I have been forced to watch both and X Factor feels like a better show. The last season of American Idol I watched, I figured out that to be a better singer, you need to sing slower.

The last season I saw of X Factor UK, there was a 19 year old married to an 80 year old, a ringer that had a music career and just a bitch attitude and my pick, the guy who didn't belong there who was like a cruise ship performer. It was funny because the two finalists looked alike, but in a "Twins" movie sort of way. Husky short guy with a beard, tall thin guy with stubble. Same hair, same face, but well different.

As for sob stories, they help in anything. Heck, even having a family and kids help with everything too.

I remember the bullshit finish to the second season of Stan Lee's "Who wants to be a Superhero?" It came down to a cop with a family who couldn't finish any of the challenges, versus a guy that could do flips, who has lived his life like a superhero. I remember in the official forums, everyone turned on the show and they had to start deleting threads.

[Doomkid]

Reality TV is so god damn boring, reality sucks, wtf is this shit ffs

[Reisal]

Garbage entertainment.

[SYS]

I thought Bar Rescue was tolerable. It came across as more than just, "HEY FUCKHEAD YOUR KITCHEN IS SHIT! YOUR FOOD IS SHIT! AND YOU ARE SHIT! YOUR WHOLE BUSINESS IS SHIT! I COULD SHIT BETTER A SALMON! THIS SHIT IS BURNT MORE THAN SUPERMAN AFTER HE FLEW INTO THE SUN!", which is essentially every episode of Kitchen Nightmares.

[GreyGhost]

Meh - if Truth in Advertising laws were extended to cover TV shows, I expect most "Reality TV" programs would disappear almost immediately. They're contrived, scripted and probably even part-choreographed, with their only saving grace being that they're cheap gap fillers for the networks.

[Philnemba]

Reality TV shows in general are boring as shit nuff said.

[nxGangrel]

Philnemba said:

Reality TV shows in general are boring as shit nuff said.

What he said.

I generally ignore the TV since it's not entertaining. Reality TV is just a joke. I'd avoid that shit like the plague.

[FireFish]

Reality tv, where people with not even the slightest ability to act a scene attempt to act a scene. That extremely fake sarcastic tone people have when they try to act (but cant) realy gets on my nerves...

Gordon ramsey had a good show though... one about visiting restaurants in other countries to "learn" while being more humble.

[TMD]

The only thing worse than unscripted American entertainment is scripted American entertainment.

At least the US is sticking to what it's good at: torture.

[geo]

TheMionicDonut said:

The only thing worse than unscripted American entertainment is scripted American entertainment.

At least the US is sticking to what it's good at: torture.

ABC scripted television always involves a fast talking speech. You sound more assertive and impactful when you talk faster. Revenge is a horrible show. Every character is pretty fucking hateful and hateable. Its like the Star Trek mirrorverse come to mainstream TV.

[Blastfrog]

TheMionicDonut said:

The only thing worse than unscripted American entertainment is scripted American entertainment.

What about Doom?

[geo]

Sodaholic said:

What about Doom?

Mars Scripted Movie != American Scripted Television

[Cupboard]

Reality TV is not strictly an American phenomenon anymore. There are thousands of "reality shows" that are filmed in other countries. One really popular show was "Survivor", if you could think of a language people still speak today, chances are good you could find a version of "Survivor" written in a language share by a couple different countries, with completely different characters and dialogue styles compared to happened in the English episodes.

That being said, I only know a small amount about US reality shows and I do not watch any of them unless there is literally nothing else for me to watch at the moment. They are ok to watch in small groups so you can make fun of the situations the characters find themselves in. That is one of the appeals on reality shows; the audience feels just as qualified or even smarter than the characters that are performing on screen. So they feel "inside" the situation, even when the conflict or situation on screen is mundane or trivial, that makes the audience feel even more superior and it gives the audience an ego boost. "You see? Everyone else's life is just as boring as my life is sometimes. And my life is sometimes just one stupid problem after another, just like inside the show."

[Blastfrog]

geo said:

Mars Scripted Movie != American Scripted Television

To clarify, I was referring to the game. It is a piece of entertainment made by Americans in America, and it is scripted in the form of the engine.

[Jaxxoon R]

I don't think that counta.

[geo]

Sodaholic said:

To clarify, I was referring to the game. It is a piece of entertainment made by Americans in America, and it is scripted in the form of the engine.

My joke was that its on Mars, not America :-) I suppose any joke that needs explanation is a bad joke :-(

[Kontra Kommando]

I dated a girl for 4 years, that was on America's Next top model. Though I won't say who.

She said it was pretty much scripted.

[geo]

Kontra Kommando said:

I dated a girl that was on America's Next top model for 4 years. Though I won't say who.

She said it was pretty much scripted.

Don't they usually change contestants? I've never seen it. If someone is on four years, makes me think they're one of the hosts.

[Kontra Kommando]

geo said:

Don't they usually change contestants? I've never seen it. If someone is on four years, makes me think they're one of the hosts.

I meant to say that we went out for 4 years. She was only on for a season.

[Fulgrim]

The closest I get to reality TV is watching Kitchen Nightmares occasionally. One of my roommates got me into it a while ago. Though it can be hard to watch because of how gross some of the kitchens are. It's even harder to watch when you realize that some restaurants are that far out of the health code.

[Chezza]

I'm from Australia and use a mix of Netflix, Foxtel and good old free net surfing entertainment.

9/10 of American Reality shows are, in my eyes, crap. But my parents love their Storage Wars but happen to also like that piece of s*#$ Pawn Stars full of ghetto actors and mind numbing garbage. In saying that, I still see American Television as one of the best around, at least as far as their non reality goes. Australia Reality takes half a decade or more to adopt American Televised trends but we tend to take the ideas and add our own flavour to them, although for better or worse I do not know as I still don't like them.

I enjoy UK shows and their humour the most overall, from classics to modern.

[Kontra Kommando]

My family also knows the Cake Boss, since the 1970s.

[Avoozl]

I never saw a reason to have Foxtel, especially since it's riddled with ads. There's no way I would pay for a service with ads.