Wildly unrealistic
If a reality show films in the wilderness and no one’s watching, did it ever really happen? Such philosophical waxing has become a sad possibility for U.K. reality show contestants who were stranded in the Scottish highlands for a year — even though the show had stopped airing on TV.
Eden, which debuted last July on Channel 4, set 23 strangers on a remote 600-acre estate to build a self-sufficient community without wimpy things like technology and modern tools.
Only four episodes aired, says The Guardian, with viewership tumbling to 800,000 from 1.7 million.
Thirteen contestants — including a doctor, a paramedic, a yoga instructor and a fisherman — reportedly left the show amid infighting, hunger and sexual tension.
Nevertheless, producers neglected to tell the remaining 10 that the public didn’t give two fig leaves about Eden — and that their former cohabitants had been slagging the show in the news and social media.
The Telegraph reported Channel 4’s official response: “Filmed every day for an entire year, Eden will return to our screens soon to tell the full story of life in the community and how they have fared.”
TRADING SPACES RETURNING
And from reality shows that nobody watched to one that a lot of people did: TLC’s landmark home design show Trading Spaces will return with new episodes.
“This is a big one,” network president Nancy Daniels said Tuesday. “I am excited to announced that TLC’s most successful and most iconic series … is coming back.”
She said the reboot will premiere sometime in 2018, but didn’t elaborate.
Trading Spaces gave two pairs of neighbours two days, a design team and $1,000 to redo a room in each others’ houses. It became water cooler fodder because of the designers’ wacky ideas, like attaching live moss and hay to homeowners’ walls.
The show originally aired from 2000 to 2008.