ABC

MTV

The Bachelor 13

The Bachelor, True Beauty, other shows debut

A flood of new reality series kick off this week; from last Friday to next Sunday, there are 17 new shows, eight of which debut between last Friday and today. To keep up with new series—I only post about the debuts of the most newsworthy shows—bookmDark the winter reality TV schedule, which is frequently updated, most recently to include the return of The Real Housewives of New York City.

Over the past few days, TLC debuted Countdown to the Crown, its Miss America reality series; Animal Planet debuted its dog makeover series Underdog to Wonderdog, and VH1 debuted ’80s idol-following docudrama Confessions of a Teen Idol and the new Rock of Love, which takes place on a bus and is probably Bret’s last season.

Tonight, NBC’s Superstars of Dance competition—which officially debuted last night (where it places third behind Desperate Housewives and NCIS)—moves to its regularly scheduled Mondays at 8 timeslot. At the same time, ABC kicks things off with the thirteenth (!) season of The Bachelor, which this time includes single moms, as new bachelor Jason Mesnick is a single dad.

At 9:30, MTV spins off Run’s House with Daddy’s Girls, a new series that follows Vanessa and Angela Simmons as they move to Los Angeles.

And at 10 is ABC’s True Beauty, which is from Tyra Banks and Ashton Kutcher. If that doesn’t make it sound fascinating enough, here’s ABC’s description: “gorgeous contestants assume they’re being judged solely on their outer appearance” but “are also being evaluated — unbeknownst to them — for their INNER beauty as well when they’re put through scenarios and situations that require them to make moral decisions.” Tune in to find out what qualifies as a moral decision in Tyra and Ashton’s universe.

industry news

Producer Kathy Wetherell died

Kathy Wetherell, a reality show producer with wide-ranging credits, died in a car accident before Christmas.

Variety reports that she “was killed in an automobile accident Dec. 20 in Arizona,” and that “[s]he is survived by her husband, parents, brother and nephews.” A memorial service is being held today in Hollywood.

Wetherell’s credits include everything from The Bachelor 12 to Love Cruise to Kill Reality (which is listed in a separate IMDB profile). Variety says she also worked on Road Rules, Making the Band, Flavor of Love, and Charm School.

Phoenix ABC affiliate KNXV’s report of the accident identifies her age as 22 (Variety says 48), but says that her car “crashed head-on into a tour bus” and that she “might have been trying to avoid an animal when she veered into the path of the bus.” The station says that “[13] people on the bus were treated for some type of injury” and “three are said to be in serious condition.” A police spokesperson said “[i]t was the heroic efforts of the driver of the tour bus who was able to keep the bus from going off the road and rolling over.”

American Idol 8

Kara DioGuardi: viewers “may think my intensity and my boldness are bitchy”

Here’s a new year prediction: American Idol’s new judge, Kara DioGuardi, will be awesome, and may help rescue the show. Previously uncovered evidence suggested she will be totally awesome. At the very least, it’ll be nice to have one judge who doesn’t say the exact same things they’ve already said for seven seasons. But her insecurities about being the new judge might get in the way.

In a profile, Entertainment Weekly runs down her resume and qualifications, and her attitude. Executive producer Ken Warwick told the magazine, “She’s very strong-willed, and we needed that with Simon around. I don’t want anybody too benign on that panel. Kara tells it as it is.”

As a bonus, Kara will sit between Paula and Randy, so there will be a break in-between the most substance-less of the judges. Kara told the magazine that the producers initially wanted to have her next to Simon. “They tried [putting] me between her and Simon, but they kept trying to communicate and I didn’t want to be in the middle of that,” she said.

And Kara proves that by talking about her dad’s testicles. “My grandfather was a guy who came through Ellis Island and started a grocery store. So my father had incredible balls. He had this I’m-gonna-do-whatever-I-want-to-do-and-you-can’t-stop-me thing that I got. … I always wanted to be a trial attorney. I love to argue.”

Still, she’s concerned how she’ll come across. “I know who I am, but what are people going to perceive me as? They may think my intensity and my boldness are bitchy. I hope not. I don’t think I’m bitchy,” she said.

While it’s obvious she’ll overshadow Paula unless Paula loses it again, Kara dismisses rumors that there’s conflict between them, and Warwick and Paula both deny that Paula will leave. Warwick told EW, “That’s just cheeky journalistic hype,” while DioGuardi said, “Paula and I have a good vibe. I have respect for Paula. I’m not of the thinking that women should drag each other down.”

Survivor Gabon

Top Model 9

Charges against Ace Gordon dropped due to “insufficient evidence”; Bianca Golden won’t be prosecuted

Two reality stars arrested with crimes last year won’t be prosecuted.

In August, Top Model 9 contestant Bianca Golden was arrested after an airport brawl that included Hairspray star Nikki Blonsky. Now, “the cases against Nikki Blonsky and Bianca Golden have been dropped. The only case that is still proceeding is against [Blonsky’s] father,” a police sergeant told E! News. E! reports that Carl Blonsky “still faces charges of assault and inflicting grievous bodily harm for his role in the Providenciales International Airport brawl.”

Survivor Gabon contestant Ace Gordon won’t be prosecuted after his mid-November arrest for disorderly intoxication and other misdemeanors following an incident at a bar, the details of which were disputed by the bar’s owner.

On the Monday before Christmas, a Florida assistant state attorney signed and filed a “notice of no information” which said there was “insufficient evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The Naples Daily News reports that “deputies were unable to find the woman who allegedly was hit and she didn’t press charges for battery,” while “Gordon’s defense attorney, Michelle Hill, denied he hit a woman and had demanded video surveillance footage to prove it. She also said Gordon denied telling deputies he was famous and pointed out it wasn’t in his arrest reports.”

UK Big Brother

Celebrity Big Brother returns to the UK; cast will be “chucked out” for racism, bad behavior

The sixth season of Channel 4’s Celebrity Big Brother debuted Friday night in the UK, after being cancelled last year over racist taunting of a houseguest and other incidents during the 2007 season. (A poorly received spin-off, Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack, did air last January on E4.)

Racist language or similar behavior won’t be tolerated, producers said. Executive producer Phil Edgar-Jones told the Guardian the new cast members “are not stupid. They know if they say anything like that they will be chucked out.”

And executive producer Sharon Powers said that producers “have spoken to the celebrities. If they have not seen it already we have explained to them the things that happened in the last Celebrity Big Brother and made the rules really clear to them, what sort of language won’t be tolerated and unacceptable behaviour. We have spoken to all of them in detail and they are all very clear what the boundaries are. I think they have all seen [the show]. We have told anyone who hasn’t seen it to go and look at it on YouTube.”

The 11 new housemates include Coolio, Verne Troyer and La Toya Jackson, all of whom have previously appeared on US reality shows.

reality blurred

The year in reality TV, 2008

Another 12 months have evaporated. The year started with American Gladiators, trudged along with a dull-ass American Idol season that even its lead judge admitted was boring, and was brought to a close by The Hills’ fourth-season finale. Along the way, we had everything from a bachelorette giving panties to the bachelor to an overexposed idiot’s search for a new best friend.

During the year, there was also shocking news and bizarre news, and intriguing news like the fact that people who watch reality TV are more likely to be huge whores online. Andy Cohen still has a job hosting reunion shows for some unknown reason; Bravo and Fox Reality both offered half-assed, insulting reality TV-focused awards shows; and let’s all forget that September disaster except for Jeff Probst’s Emmy win.

Yes, the year that gave us the final two Bravo Project Runways and hopefully the final Farmer Wants a Wife was crazy, and not just because the summer’s break-out hit was the oddly crazy-fun Wipeout. Amid all of this were some trends I noticed this year, and those are outlined below. Of course, a lot more happened, and you can take a look through the 2008 archives for other examples.

Thanks so much for reading in 2008, and I’ll see you the first full week of 2009, rested and ready for the new spring reality shows.

• Adults finally get their own Real World in The Real Housewives. MTV-style reality shows are watched by all age groups, but while their frightening demographic groups (12 to 24, and 12 to 34) leave some room for adults, it’s not much. And although they provided entertainment to us in the past and sometimes in the present, it’s honestly kind of skeezy to watch a bunch of drunk 20-year-olds hook up and create artificial dramas in their empty, meaningless lives. The problem is that the casts of The Real World or Bad Girls Club or other similar trashy fun shows have very little by the way of lives that are relatable, so all they end up being is mockable, as in, ha ha, look at them, not my pathetic self for still watching Real World for the past 15 years. Enter Bravo’s The Real Housewives, which first debuted on Bravo in 2006, but became a full-fledged phenomenon in 2008, thanks to the debut of two spin-offs. The Real Housewives of New York City’s craziness was only eclipsed by the debut of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, which took us places MTV has never even approached. In all of these absurd, hysterical, nutty people, Bravo has given us a guilty pleasure that can be enjoyed guilt-free.
• High definition makes it clear that Survivor is back. Survivor never went anywhere, but has now delivered three solid, sometimes spectacular seasons in a row—or five if you count Fiji and Cook Islands, which I would. Survivor Gabon wasn’t anywhere near as good as last fall’s Survivor China or spring’s Survivor Micronesia (with its series of blindside, shocking blindside, holy fuck blindsides, but season 17 delivered from start to finish—and it really stood out because it was the first to be filmed in HD. The images are now so stunning that it’s impossible to believe the show never looked like this before. (The Amazing Race now looks a finger painting in comparison because it stubbornly refuses to switch.) Despite having debuted eight summers ago, Survivor was the eighth-most popular show in 2008, and why that is the case is very clear now.
• Good reality show ideas are often really bad ones disguised by nostalgia, greed, or something else. This year, we saw many attempts to revive or create unscripted shows that seemed like good ideas at the time, but ended up sucking. The Mole and Paradise Hotel both attempted new versions, and both fell kind of flat—particularly when compared to their predecessors. The spring, strike-induced version of Big Brother was boring, a mortal sin greater than the appalling behavior that took place in the house and the control room. ABC tried to squeeze more money from two of its franchises, High School Musical and Dancing with the Stars, but the results, High School Musical: Get in the Picture and Dance War, were terrible. After firing her years ago, Trading Spaces brought host Paige Davis back, but seriously, who watches anymore? Sometimes, no matter how much we miss them, we need to lead dead things stay dead.
• Good can actually prevail, even on reality TV competitions. “Judas” Dan Gheesling won Big Brother 10, the show’s first non-revolting winner maybe ever, and Bob the teacher won Survivor Gabon, having managed to both play the game and be a pretty good guy. It’s nice not to have to force yourself to barf after a season finale.
• Trying to hide sexuality from reality viewers is kind of pointless. While Big Brother 9’s James admirably copped to and shrugged off his gay porn career and bisexuality, the show ignored those parts of his life, even though fans knew what was going on. Ditto with American Idol 7 and its insisted he has no sexual desires, but later (finally!) admitted he really does desire men, while Real World Seattle slapper Stephen admitted he was gay. No surprise to anyone there. Still, networks and stars continue to try to hide what they shouldn’t bother to hide. HGTV told Mikey Verdugo he couldn’t come to the finale because the openly gay police officer’s gay porn past came up, which was pretty pathetically transparent and obnoxious on HGTV’s part, just as it was for the show’s editors to ignore his sexuality.
• Acting is not for reality TV, but apparently it is. I won’t even mention The Hills here (whoops!), but far too many shows gave signs that their genuineness is compromised by fakeness this year. Some series actually have talking head robo-hosts who are fed lines by producers, while Extreme Makeover: Home Edition forces its beneficiaries to become actors by filming retakes. Even Deadliest Catch disappointingly admitted using pick-up shots (read: retakes). Stop this lazy bullshit, okay? If you don’t get it on tape, it doesn’t belong in the show.
• Reality shows that are actually real are better than ones that aren’t. Last year, I cited great reality shows, and this year, 35 years after An American Family, TV gave us even more great shows—and the best of them were actually real. Go figure! Animal Planet’s new direction brought us the entertaining and thought-provoking Whale Wars and Grizzly Man Diaries, while MTV gave us The Paper, which followed high school journalists. There was also The Alaska Experiment on Discovery, Carrier on PBS, and Architecture School on Sundance. Even VH1 gave us Celebrity Rehab, which seemed like penance for its 74,125 moronic dating shows, which have their moments but as a whole are repetitive and unaware self-parody. Watching quasi-celebrities suffer through their addictions is captivating and its depth offers more fulfillment than anything else VH1 offers. As a bonus, it’s so popular VH1 is spinning it off. That’s the kind of real drama television really needs.

The Hills

The City’s “fake reality is more real than you might think”

Not that there was any question, but The City, which debuted last night on MTV, is just as set-up and fake as the series that spawned it, even though it does have elements of reality.

New York Magazine’s profile of the new series says it is “at once totally genuine and ridiculously contrived” but insists “the fake reality is more real than you might think.” That’s despite the fact that the article starts with producers directing crowds and telling a cab where to stop to get the best shot, The magazine even talks about the show as if it was fiction, saying Whitney’s friend Erin Lucas “will play Whitney’s friend from back home” and notes that Whitney’s love interest, Jay Lyon, was “asked if he’d be interested in being a regular on The City.”

MTV executive and executive producer Liz Gately said that filming Lauren Conrad’s $75,000-an-episode life has made it “harder for us to find those moments when she’s the Lauren going through more universal and relatable experiences,” which is why The City was born.

As to the fakeness of Whitney’s job with Diane Von Furstenberg, Page Six said (citing—what else?—an anonymous source) that Whitney “doesn’t really work. She is hardly ever in the office,” and said other employees “can’t get their work done because MTV tells them they can’t move any thing at their work stations. They do so many reshoots that everything has to look exactly the same every day.”

But New York’s piece says otherwise, although since its source is Kelly Cutrone, The Hills guest star and fashion publicist who hired Whitney and Lauren to work for People’s Revolution, it may be just as sketchy. Cutrone said Whitney was “a very real employee” and “[t]he way it all happened is exactly how you saw it on the show,” and also insists, “It wasn’t like I did all that for Whitney thinking she’d get her own show. … It’s not like I’m in secret cahoots with DVF here. I mean, I don’t even represent her.”

Show creator confirms that Whitney didn’t know anything about the possible job until it was caught on tape, despite her (typical) blank expression. “The truth is that Whitney was really in the dark. She didn’t know she’d be in New York, and neither did we,” Adam Divello said.

Whitney herself isn’t the best advocate for making the show seem real, as she described the alleged documentary about her life as “a really wonderful opportunity for all these kids,” and said “It can be kind of weird. I like to think people are friends with me because they like me, you know, and not because of what I can do for them. But of course it’s just part of the job, you know?”