Well worth watching
REALITY SHOWS: STREAMERS LOVE THIS GENRE ON THEIR LINE-UPS
While there are awful ones, some just cut the mustard.
There is no such thing as a reality show. It’s impossible not to notice contrived situations and conflict driving assemblies of participants in shows like Housewives of… well, almost every city in South Africa and the world.
The success of intellectually vacant shows like the Housewives are likely testament to a Revelations-like prophesy of the end of humankind and common sense. Because it is that nauseating, vacuous and impossibly stupid. While watching it, it kinda makes you wish the acceleration of the rapture, just to get away from these shows and their players.
Streamers, particularly Netflix and Showmax love a good dollop of the reality genre within its programming line-up, So too, do some DStv channels serve up impossibly awful shows. Then there is always the Disney Hulu presentation of yet another Kardashian season that shows the family Groundhog-day every possible theme until exhaustive collapse.
The formula is the same, no matter the subject line designed to entice. But there are a few shows, reality-based game shows and somewhat more interesting unscripted programmes that cut the mustard.
Selling Sunset, the Netflix realtor show set in Los Angeles, is not shy about being a cliched reality show. But the difference is the property market.
It’s worth watching simply because the homes they get to sell are at times breathtaking, and it provides some insight into how many other halves of society live, spend their cash and, well, buy and sell properties that cost as much as most of us would earn in a lifetime. It elevates the show well above its reality peers, despite the recipe being the same.
And then, there are the game shows like Survivor, now in its gazillionth global season. Survivor Australia is coming to our screens next, and there is just something about this show and its format that earns it respect. It’s clever, it challenges contestants to push their personal envelopes, there’s no glitz and elaborate posturing. And there’s the battle of wit where wily contestants purposefully take one another out to win. It’s addictive, no matter what.
The same can be said for The Trust, a fairly new Netflix offering that replaces Survivor’s jungles with the concrete kind, using greed to fuel interaction. The pot of cash at the end of the season is shared, and it puts contestant’s selflessness to the test after every challenge. They can share or dispose of fellow players.
It turns alliances upside down and is a fresh take on a tired format. Well worth watching, because The Trust really tests human nature, and one of the seven deadly sins, greed, against conscience.
Apart from the eye-candy element, shows like Love Island and Temptation Island are an indictment of human relationships. Sure, it’s sexy, sure it’s sexually charged, but for how long exactly can anyone watch a bunch of shirtless hunks and bikini-clad hotties trying to get into one another’s pants, tear-up when they uncouple and conspire to bag brawn or beauty.
It’s mind numbing to the millionth degree, and after a while even the sex appeal of contestants wears off, because they opened their mouths to reveal exactly how unattractive they are.
There is a relationship show that’s somewhat interesting though, because it does not depend on looks, boobs, muscles, and balloons.
Love Is Blind is unconventional because none of the contestants get to see one another in the flesh until they propose marriage.
The programme is based on the premise that, well, love can be blind, which means that people fall in love with the real person behind the veil.
And while it can be a bit boring at times, especially because contestants keep interviewing one another, job-applicant style, it does hold viewer interest most of the time.
Importantly, the concept is not vacuous, and the content of the show can really spark a good measure of introspection along the way.
But the very best reality show, or game show, or hybrid, must be The Squid Game.
It’s as intense as the original show, it’s as challenging and surprisingly, makes its fictional predecessor more real, underpinning again the fact that greed can supersede almost every other state of being for people. Because ultimately, everyone’s in it for themselves. Here, Netflix hit on a real reality winner.