Get real!

I have to confess that I watch way too much TV. In fact I always have, even as a kid I used to spend hours in front of the idiot box rather than going out and playing. And later, as a grown up, when I was working and staying alone in a sad little apartment, the glorious little box proved to be a valuable companion! What is so fascinating about it I can’t really say, but it does have a hypnotizing effect on me.

Apart from the normal cartoons, I enjoyed a lot of other shows as a kid like Doogie Howser, The wonder years, I dream of Genie, Different strokes, Three’s company and many more. Now I do have to say that there’s something nostalgically sweet about the shows of yesteryears. If I do find the re runs of any of those shows today I still watch them and it brings back the warmth and comfort of my parents’ home straightaway..

In recent times, however, I have been incurably hooked on to entertainment of another kind, the reality shows! I can boast of having watched all kinds of reality shows, American, British, Indian, some really entertaining, some unbearably dramatic. Some of the most bizarre ones were “A moment of Truth”, where contestants are strapped up with a lie detector and asked very embarrassing and personal questions in front of not only family and friends but of course on national television, all for the sole purpose of making money. Even though it was widely protested all over the media with reports of families breaking up after the show, there were always people eager to come on the show to dish out their dirty secrets in public!

Another interesting one was “Paris Hilton’s- My new BFF”, where Paris Hilton gets going for the search of her next BFF- best friend forever! I don’t really know how someone could get a best friend by putting together a group of weird characters and subjecting them to some equally weird tasks, but I would leave that to her. After the show, I never really heard about the poor girl who became her BFF! Then of course there was another one, “From G’s to Gents” where they put together a group of gangsters and try to make them into gentlemen. Now I have to say out of all the bizarre ones this was a favorite. Simply because it wasn’t too dramatic, it looked real, and it was for a good purpose.

Among the normal reality shows, I do enjoy shows like so you think you can dance, project runway, Top chef and Tim Gunn’s guide to style. Now let’s talk about Indian reality shows. Some time back Indian television was flooded with stand up comedy shows, apart from one or two the rest were painfully boring. Then there’s the usual dancing competition, singing competitions, talent hunts. And of recent, the approach of Indian reality shows is simple, pick up a reality show in English, copy the whole format, including the set design and background music and make it your own with a Hindi name! I guess the Indian television industry has just run out of ideas. However, I do have to hand it to them, they manage to turn any kind of reality show into a sob story with unreal drama, sad stories of contestants and it seems that every show I turn to the judges are always involved in a cat fight or otherwise someone’s always reduced to tears on the show.

It’s hard to say how long this recent trend is meant to last but in the meantime there’s no denying that it is entertaining for all!

Linus Orakles
http://www.authorclub.info/