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Reality TV, a term that entered our vernacular around 2000 to describe shows where people are in unscripted situations, has roots that go back as far as 1948 with Candid Camera. Game shows, variety shows and home videos shows have been around for decades, but are not necessarily considered "reality TV."

With the introduction of Survivor, reality TV took off like wildfire. Soon every station on television and cable had its own reality show of sorts. After about the first two years, it seemed like all of the good show ideas had been taken, but yet they still created more reality shows. And the reality of it is, is that it's not reality.

I originally thought that Survivor was going to take the people and drop them into the middle of an area and make them get back to a central point - much like a marine corps drill. But no, it was a semi-scripted show with a lot of guidelines and boundaries. So, my vicious Neanderthal carnal desire to see people eaten alive by lions or tigers or piranhas will just have to wait until someone adds some "reality" to "reality TV."

Numerous dating elimination shows popped up in the early days of the Reality TV craze. I think the writers took every variation on a theme of banality. There was a show about dating two people at the same time and choosing one. There was a show where average guys compete to date a model (I actually had worked with one of the guys on there). There was a show where women competed to marry a guy who they thought was rich, but turned out to a common construction worker. And they are still coming up with asinine show ideas. With the exception of possibly the speed dating phenomenon, no one "competes" to find a mate. This isn't reality at all. It's not a job interview. I was waiting for the woman who goes to the bar with friends and gets hooks up with a guy just be a jerk and leave the next day. Or the guy who finds a woman who only wants him to pay her bills and watch her kids. Where are the shows where the couple fights because there's not enough money to pay the bills and then your kid falls at school and has to get an X-ray, but you have no health insurance? Now, that's reality.

Where Star Search broadened people's talents into more than one category, American Idol focuses strictly on singing. It conjured up the mass diaspora of every shower diva in the country. In one sense, it brings out America's best, but on the other hand, it brings out America's worst. The show emphasizes the fact that, not only are they looking for a good, strong singer and performer, but they are also looking at style and appearance. And with the candidness that defines the show, the bad singers and people who don't fit the image are booted. This actually may be the closest thing to reality that reality TV gets.

I feel that game shows are actually inundating the reality show genre. Between Deal or No Deal, 1 vs. 100, and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?, prime time game shows are making a comeback. Game shows used to be in the mid-morning or late afternoon time slots for retired people and sick kids home from school, but it's quickly becoming a commonality in prime time television, competing against the plethora of established crime dramas and sit-coms.

I think people are tired of the reality show genre. We've gotten used to reality TV and now the hype is gone, but the writers are still writing as if we still need more. It's like eating your grandmother's potatoes au gratin. The first helping was good, but the 10th makes you sick. The ideas are becoming exhausted and frankly are reaching the bottom of the barrel. So, is Reality TV doing the rest of television justice? No, we're tired, and we want another fad to watch.

Learn more about this author, Joyce D. Sinclair.
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