Reality Shows

Reality shows.. what a name for a somewhat scripted peek into the lives of a group of people. Somewhat? How can that be? The producers are king in these shows rather  than the writers. A Producer or a team of producers set up scenarios that pit the characters to plot against other contestants or the situation that they find themselves in and all of it is captured, albeit with clever editing to the drama on the screen.

This form of television crawled itself out of  the gutter and on to the screen in 1999  with Big Brother and Survivor.  The Wiki claims its been around since the beginning of TV. The Japanese form presents itself as a frenic game show. The American versions have mutated into cooking shows such as Cupcake Wars, and  unbelievable dramas as  cultures thrown together, as  the red neck millionaires  from the  south vacation  in the Hamptons and the eighteen wheelers move mining supplies over frozen lakes in the Arctic tundra in Ice Truckers.

My favorite in genre: Gold Rush, the story this year of three groups of people trying to make some money from surface mining in the wilds of Alaska. The 18 year old kid who takes over the mining operation from his 90 year old grandfather is contrasted to the small time Dakota team that took over the mine from a the Oregon crew from last year and is trying to top their total, The Oregon crew which was followed exclusively last year is now recast into a new site up on the Klondike, over a thousand miles away.  They all face broken down equipment, personality conflicts and disappointment in the ongoing process. The stunning Alaskan wilderness is a constant background for all of this activity. Some of it is near Haines, Alaska, one of our favorite Alaskan ports we have visited in our summer Alaskan voyages.  Its appeal lies in the scenery, the middle aged to older cast members and various forms of big equipment used to extract a tiny amount of gold from a huge mountain of dirt.  

My current interesting pick since the season of Gold Rush is over,  is the show that highlights the drama involved  airplane repossession. In the last week I was mesmerized by the show that highlighted the repossession of two Airbus jets from France and Istanbul. A European airlines was on the verge of going bankrupt so the banks that held the loans on the jets needed to repossess them before they got mired in the bankrupt procedures and lost their value to the lein holders. What is interesting about this show is that they have to make sure the plane is airworthy before they spirit them off  the ground to the their final destination, the corporate holding hangers in Gary Indiana. In other shows they were after private jets in Florida. There is always a tense moment as these properties need to be spotted and tagged and flown away in front of people that are sworn and paid to protect people’s valuable assets. Its amazing to me that there are people that can spot the difference in small jets models as some people can determine the make and model of Hondas and Nissans.

Sue and I were watching an interesting somewhat of a reality show in the middle of the night last night. It’s a repo game show. They host shows up with a tow truck and gets the owners to answer 3 out of 5 general information questions to save the car from being repossessed. One question that neither of us could answer..name the actors in the Jerry Seinfeld show.  We were stumped just as the contestant was stumped. We were able to name the five states that bordered the Gulf of Mexico… Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. The contestant could not come up with the correct answer, although the contestant knew how many stars were on the Texas state flag.