Reality shows

Question

Why are most reality TV shows in the form of a game? They're always some kind of contest or competition. Why can't there be "unscripted" soaps, crime dramas, westerns, etc.?Lois

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Why are most reality TV shows in the form of a game? They're always some kind of contest or competition. Why can't there be "unscripted" soaps, crime dramas, westerns, etc.?[/nq]
Right. Turn on the camera and hope something exciting happens.

jaybee

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Why are most reality TV shows in the form of a game? They're always some kind of contest or competition. Why can't there be "unscripted" soaps, crime dramas, westerns, etc.? Lois[/nq]
Westworld asked the same question.

Paul :-)Nz

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Why are most reality TV shows in the form of a game? They're always some kind of contest or competition. Why can't there be "unscripted" soaps, crime dramas, westerns, etc.? Lois[/nq]
On second thoughts... Can you imagine "reality" contestants standing there and watching a band of renegade Comanche war party riding down the bluff in search of a little payback?

Will John and Betty, and little Sue win that hum-vee they've dreamed about all these years, or will their scalps be drying out in the wigwam tonight...?

Paul :-)Nz

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Why are most reality TV shows in the form of a game? They're always some kind of contest or competition. Why can't there be "unscripted" soaps, crime dramas, westerns, etc.?[/nq]
Improv comedy is (IMHO) just writing without editing. If you're really, really good at it, you can get laughs, but even Who's Line Is It Anyway? (what most people know of improv comedy) is heavily edited; it's just edited after taping. Improv soaps, like (say) Big Brother, would be deadly dull without some form of editing. Adding a contest element gives a bit of structure to the proceedings, without which it's just a bunch of people in a room yelling at each other (see: MTV's The Real World, which some have claimed is very heavily "scripted" in the sense that off-camera producers, etc, set stuff up all the time, to create drama).

-- Life Continues, Despite Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

Usenet · Answer

Why are most reality TV shows in the form of a game? They're always some kind of contest or competition. Why can't there be "unscripted" soaps, crime dramas, westerns, etc.?

Lois

For the same reason that you won't find very many sporting events where people just run or climb or jump, or skate, with no competition of any kind, or record to be broken (which essentially amounts to competing against some prior record).

Why not? Isn't that just as thrilling? Just as exciting? Just as involving?

You bet your *** it's not.

Somebody runs and runs and runs and runs and runs -- until he just runs out of steam and he can't run any more.

Pretty exciting huh?

Somebody runs and runs and runs and runs -- and if he can just run for another minute, he'll beat the world record.

Now, forty seconds to go, now thirty, twenty, ten -- he's exhausted. Can he make it?

Now it's exciting.

Even if it's the same guy, running exactly the same distance.

Because now he's running against something.

We find competition exciting -- the prospect of victory (of some kind or other) attained at great cost in opposition to great obstacles.

Whether embodied in sport, or so-called "reality" TV, or in story -- that is the heart of drama.

And people have always found that to be involving.

Even series like "Frontier Home" -- in which modern families volunteered to live as families lived during frontier times was constructed in this way. The families had finite resources -- and had set goals -- to get ready for the winter. They had advantages or disadvantages. They could succeed or fail -- just as the real pioneers needed to prepare for winter, and success or failure for them could spell life or death.

And that possibility of success or failure in achieving the task that was set for them drove the underlying drama of the series. Without it -- if it had all simply been open-ended -- just live like pioneers for X number of months and then it'll be over -- it wouldn't have been anywhere nearly as involving.

That is what brings us back week after week. We want to see who will win -- and who will lose.

NMS

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Improv comedy is (IMHO) just writing without editing. If you're really, really good at it, you can get laughs, but even Who's Line Is It Anyway? (what most people know of improv comedy) is heavily edited; it's just edited after taping.[/nq]
Well, now, I've seen the (American) Whose Line team perform live at the Just For Laughs festival twice now -- both times they sustained it for nearly two hours, and didn't need any editing that I could see.

--

"Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go." --E L Doctorow

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Why are most reality TV shows in the form of a game? They're always some kind of contest or competition. Why can't there be "unscripted" soaps, crime dramas, westerns, etc.? Lois Look out your window, Lois! And no commercials![/nq]
it's pretty dull 99% of the time, isn't it?

Mysti

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Look out your window, Lois! And no commercials! it's pretty dull 99% of the time, isn't it?[/nq]
Dull?! Dull?!

Yesterday I watched another goshawk swoop in and hit one of my dominique hens. He had her on her back when our rooster -- a Golden Polish named Mad Mardigan -- leapt on the hawk's back. The hawk let go of the hen, and the rooster and hawk rolled down the hill away from me. By then I was running out the kitchen door, shouting. The hawk saw me coming, freed itself and blasted off across the meadow. Today, Mad Mardigan still has blood-stained legs, but he's crowing and doing the other important Rooster Thing, so I guess he'll survive.

When I let them out of the coop this morning, Mad Mardigan attacked me, which I take to mean that he felt he could have done the job without me...

It's a jungle out there.

Alan Brooks ~~ A ******* with an Underwood

-- Suzy Elkins Critter Story Award Contestant

~~ Important MWSM Documents -- The MWS FAQ: http://www.online-communicator.com/faqs.html ~~

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Dull?! Dull?! Yesterday I watched another goshawk swoop in and hit one of my dominique hens. He had her on ... to mean that he felt he could have done the job without me... It's a jungle out there. Alan Brooks[/nq]
I guess it really is the year of the rooster. BTW, are you a Willow fan?

Paul :-)Nz

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I guess it really is the year of the rooster. BTW, are you a Willow fan?[/nq]
My daughter is. The rest of the chickens got named after famous pirates during her "Pirates of the Caribbean" phase. Except the other rooster, who I named.

Alan Brooks ~~ A ******* with an Underwood

-- Drumstick, Captain Drumstick.

~~ Important MWSM Documents -- The MWS FAQ: http://www.online-communicator.com/faqs.html

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