Reality TV

I was never a fan of the "reality television" craze, thinking most of "those shows" to be demeaning, insipid, and not worth my time when something else more carefully crafted--by artists in their fields of acting, writing, directing, designing, etc.--was available to watch (yes, on television--it is a medium for quality work, too, you know!). But I've been sucked in now. By at least a few shows, that is. Here are four that Susan and I (and, sometimes, the girls) have been watching regularly:

Project Runway -- Totally addicted. Each week a group of aspiring fashion designers is given another designing challenge. After their creations are shown on the runway, a panel of fashion designers, models, and critics judges the work and chooses which contestant to send home. (Host and famous model herself Heidi Klum warns the designers each week, "As you know, in the world of fashion, one day you're in and the next day you're out." And "You are out" is her catchphrase dismissal of each week's losing designer.) We like this show because one just can't guess each week just which designs will win over the judges. Sometimes the crappiest garments win their praise while much more wearable and appealing designs are deemed boring or uninspired. Often, though, we're of the same mind as the judges. This show is moving into the final round when the winning designer will be announced. Exciting!

Amazing Race 10 -- My friend Darin and I couldn't get enough of this series in its previous seasons, and now Susan and I are loving the tenth edition. Couples compete against each other in a race around the world, each week finding clues at locations all over the globe, completing challenges related to the current country and culture, testing their own endurance and cleverness and ability to get along with one another and other teammates and "the locals" in each country, and fighting against time and bad luck to avoid being the couple each week who hears Phil, the host, say, "I'm sorry to tell you that you have been eliminated from the race." Our love of this show even inspired our own local version!

Design Star -- Not to be left out, Home and Garden TV created this, its reality show intended to find the next great interior design star. A group of designers was given a design challenge with parameters of varying difficulty each week (e.g., You must redesign this room using only items you can find in this pet supply store) until finally only two candidates remained. The show built two glass houses in a park in New York City, and crowds gathered to watch each finalist design the interior as a room of his/her choice (both chose to do bedrooms). The winner gets his own design show on the network!

Dancing with the Stars -- A celebrity is paired with a professional ballroom dancer, and the pro gets one week to whip the non-dancer into shape before the pair must deliver a polished, professional-level dance routine for a panel of three ballroom dance judges. The critics give them scores, and afterward the television audience call in from their homes, and each couple's final score is a combination of votes from the public and tallies from the judges. Tuesdays we see each couple dance (and some are truly amazing), and Wednesdays we see who got the lowest combined score from the previous night and must be let go from the show. It's interesting to note how this show has contributed to an appreciation for and renewed interest in ballroom dance in this country.

Celebrity Duets -- Similar to Dancing with the Stars, this show paired a non-singing star with a famous singer each week, and they performed one or two duets in as polished a way as they could muster after a week's rehearsals. One of the joys of this show was being surprised by the identities of each week's guest singers and by the way they were paired with the celebrity contestants themselves. One annoying aspect of the show: the results (who was voted off each week) were determined solely by the number of call-in votes each celebrity received, not by any input from the panel of judges, who gave oral critiques following each duet but weren't allowed to score, rank, or rate the performances. Thus, it was a popularity contest rather than a talent contest, and that was irritating. Marie Osmond, Little Richard, and David Foster were on the panel, and Wayne Brady hosted--and each of them, too, got to perform at some point during the run of the show.

I am sure other reality shows have their merits, too, but these are the ones that I have sampled and that haven't disgusted me with any kind of insistence on encouraging participants to be ugly to one another or with any kind of focus on humiliating or denigrating the contestants (beyond the degree to which they choose to humiliate or denigrate themselves, that is). If you haven't tried any of them, I encourage you to sample one or more and see if you agree with me.