Meghan Daum and Rob Walker
Rob,
PRINT
DISCUSS
E-MAIL
RSS
RECOMMEND...
Facebook
MySpace
Mixx
Digg
Reddit
del.icio.us
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Sphere
StumbleUponAre you kidding about The Love Boat reality show concept? Being stuck on a cruise ship and force-fed steak and shrimp cocktail for two weeks sounds far more threatening than eating rats on an island. While watching Temptation Island last night, I noticed a couple of promos for an upcoming reality show called Boot Camp, wherein "ordinary folks" (as opposed to the bionic types who normally enlist in the army) are subject to physical challenges and psychological humiliations of "the toughest drill sergeants." (I'm paraphrasing.) If I'm not mistaken, we've already seen this kind of drama on news magazine programs such as PrimeTime, though they almost always focus on women, and there's always one who joined the Army for no other reason than she wanted to lose weight. (I see an Oprah tie-in.) Interesting that Boot Camp is coming on the heels of President Bush's promise to increase wages and benefits for military personnel. Will this extend to the cast members of the Fox show, or will they have to rely on book deals and endorsements?
I think I'm going to pitch a reality show called Medical Residents. A dozen attractive, ethnically diverse exhibitionists enroll in a hospital teaching program even though they have no medical background whatsoever. Forced to work 36-hour shifts and negotiate managed care bureaucracy, they test their pluck, stamina, and gross-out quotient by completing a full rotation is just two weeks and seeing how many patients they can manage not to kill. There would be plenty of sexual tension and "emotions running high." The person with the lowest patient mortality rate (and who looks best in scrubs) would be declared the winner. The prize? Hmmm. A presidential pardon for the manslaughter charges?
I'm a little bleary this morning, so I don't yet have anything to say about the news, the ethics of apologies, the institution of marriage, or much else. In case you're wondering why I followed Temptation Island, it started out as a professional obligation and then just snowballed. I wrote a column for Beliefnet on the show's Darwinian implications, and even though I filed it after the second episode, I found myself watching every week. The finale, in keeping with the preceding episodes, was a huge disappointment. Despite a slew of dalliances and overwhelming evidence that these couples owe it to the human race to break up and never reproduce, they all got back together at the end. The most loathsome of them all, the pouty, unctuous Andy actually proposed marriage to his girlfriend, who we were duped into believing had found true love with the least offensive single in the bunch, "Ivy League grad Tom." Devastatingly, she said, "Yes!" Does this mean Tom's available now?
I promise to raise the level on the next installment. And in answer to your questions: 1) Titus is an inane Fox show with a lot of blond people (can't discern the premise). 2) Yes, I've made a few friends in Nebraska, one of whom went to Omaha yesterday to see Bush and missed the cutoff to get into the main assembly room and had to watch it on a video monitor and was PEEVED. Most of the people I know here are Volvo-driving leftists, so seeing my Republican friend, who drives a Saab, is an oasis of dissent. 3) The Rules was a book about ... oh, never mind.
Meghan
After Fort Hood, There's No Excuse for the Ban on Women in Combat
What Does "Stable Condition" Mean? Absolutely Nothing.
Jim Carrey's Admirably Restrained Scrooge
The Great New Single That's a Little Bit Whitney Houston and a Little Bit Rusted Root
Joe Biden Explains His Gaffe-Evasion Strategy
The Box: A Creepy, Confusing Thriller From the Guy Who Brought You Donnie Darko
Reader Comment From The Fray:
I have a suggestion for some 'reality based' TV programs. How about Refugee Boat? We could take contestants and put them in a third world, war torn country and give them thirty days to figure out how to make a raft, find food and get set afloat before despotic soldiers order them to dig their own graves.
Or, how about Street Survival? In this one, the contestants must survive three months on the street with only the clothes on their backs and no identification. They would be required to jump trains, sleep outdoors in alleyways and in shelters, and generally try to survive their new found compatriots, welfare rolls and dumpster diving.
And, how about this beauty? Prison Guards would be a reality based show where one would become a prison guard in one of the most feared prisons in the United States. In this show contestants get thirty days training and then must work as a prison guard in the most violence-prone sectors of the prison for at least two months. Talk about ratings! I know that I would personally be glued to the screen.
Let's give vanity and greed a real price. Instead of paying people to play the mind games most of us have to wade through in our regular work week, let's up the ante a little. I can't wait until the spotlights burn and we get to see one of these numbnuts have to face a freight train's worth of trouble rushing headlong into them.
--Rogue
(To reply, click here.)
(3/1)