To quote one of the characters in John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, reality isn’t what it used to be. The term “reality show” embraces programs from talent competitions to criminal round-ups, from cooking contests to bug-eating challenges, from celebrity family behind-the-scenes to desperate attempts to find a date for Flavor Flav. Indeed, the category is so broad that it borders on meaningless.
Fortunately, that made it easy to find eight shows that fit the list’s requirements.
Iron Chef – Let there be no mistake: we’re talking about the original Japanese shows, not the American knock-off. The series is an impressive combination of reality show competition and gourmet cooking. In each episode Chairman Kaga invites a top-notch chef into Kitchen Stadium to square off against one of the Iron Chefs in a cook-off based on a theme ingredient.
Anyone who watches the show for awhile will likely develop some affection for her or his favorite chef. Mine is Sakai, Iron Chef French. Amy prefers Chen, Iron Chef Chinese. Throughout its run, the series also sported three different Iron Chefs Japanese and an Iron Chef Italian. Regardless of whom the challenger picks, the cooking techniques used during the battles are always fun to watch. We skip the episodes that feature live ingredients, but otherwise they’re all great.
Project Runway – Yeah, I get that this isn’t really targeted toward heterosexual men. Still, I do get a kick out of it. I even find myself using little “isms” from co-host Tim Gunn (such as the ever-popular “Make it work”) with my students.
I confess I don’t understand high fashion well enough to fully comprehend the criteria by which the designers’ work is judged. Indeed, some of the decisions seem either completely arbitrary or tied more closely to personality clashes between contestants and judges than to the actual quality of the designs. However, this is one of the few places one can turn on TV to see artists at work. Indeed, the artistry and craftsmanship is a lot more entertaining than the petty reality show nonsense tacked on to keep audiences happy.
The Osbournes – This series spawned the whole “inside the private lives of celebrities” reality show concept. And for that it should be soundly condemned. But there’s just something oddly endearing about crappy old rocker Ozzy Osbourne, his manager wife Sharon and their two obnoxious kids. Part of it is the “aw, the Prince of Darkness has a human side” element. But beyond that, the series (particularly the first season) featured some genuinely comic and/or touching moments.
American Idol – This is the 800-pound gorilla on any list of reality shows. Most folks – or at least most folks who watch regularly – have a favorite part of the season. I prefer the auditions when the judges get to be mean to the people who are sure they’re going to be famous just because they want to be, not because they have any talent or skill. Amy prefers “Hollywood week,” when the contestants with at least some chance of winning get winnowed down to the dozen or two who will actually get a chance to try.
Of course the DVR makes the final performances a lot easier to take. If one watches only enough of the song to figure out what it is and then buzzes forward to see what nasty remarks Simon Cowell has to share, an hour of the show can be gulped down in less than ten minutes. Perhaps as it becomes less of a cultural phenomenon we’ll get tired of it and stop watching altogether. But we’ve stuck with it so far.
Cops – Bad boys bad boys, whatcha gonna do? Of all the video rubbernecking experiences, this is one of the first and still one of the best. To be sure, it has its dull spots. I can do without the long chases, and most of the drug stings are fairly run-of-the-mill. On the other hand, life affords us few pleasures greater than the sight of a wife beater suffering some “incidental damage” or other sundry scumbags getting a little come-uppance.
My all-time favorite Cops-related experience was talking to my dad about it shortly after the series premiered. We were watching it at the time, but he declined to give it a look. “If I want to see that kind of crap,” he said, “I can just look out my front window.” It seemed like typical hyperbole at the time. But a couple of weeks later the series aired a show shot in Kansas City, and in one segment the ride-along drove right past my folks’ place. QED.
Inside American Jail – This is like a distilled version of Cops, without the lengthy car chases and other nonsense that detract from the guilty pleasure of watching law enforcement be mean to criminals. Time after time we get belligerent drunks trying to mess with the guards only to find themselves trussed up in restraint chairs. Now that’s entertainment.
The Girls Next Door – As noted in the Hoffman Lens entry on the demise of this series, it’s hard to put a finger on just exactly what the attraction is. But nonetheless, it’s there. What I find particularly interesting about this series is how much better it turned out to be than the girls’ individual projects after splitting up with Hefner. That there was actual chemistry in the trio is the biggest shock of all.
Mythbusters – I don’t care much about the proving or disproving of urban legends. And though it’s frequently easy to note flaws in the logic of the Mythbusters testing schemes, that doesn’t bother me a lot either. Instead, I like to focus on the fun of watching them set up elaborate devices that typically shatter, shoot, burn, detonate or otherwise do in some object or another. In other words, this is “Blowed Up Real Good: The Series” combined with just enough tech nerd gadgetry to keep it cool. The Venn diagram of “Mythbusters viewers” and “Make magazine subscribers” has got to be something close to a single circle, making it an easy fit for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment