Most of these are competition reality shows, which is no accident: like sports, reality shows like these are a genre of TV that can appeal to kids’ and adult interests without denying either one. Other families I know, anecdotally, are into Storage Wars or Duck Dynasty (the latter, I guess, much like families in the ’60s were into The Beverly Hillbillies). Top Chef, Chopped, Market Warriors-if it involves cooking or selling something, we’ll watch it. ![]() Shark Tank captivates the kids, and has shown me-one of the least entrepreneurial people I know-what a fascinating process valuing a business is. The Amazing Race has given us a whole new perspective on airport travel. We handicap The Voice contestants’ odds every week. It’s not just Masterchef: nearly every TV series my wife and I watch with the Tuned In Jrs. In other words, it’s not unlike scripted TV.īut another funny thing has happened over the past generation: reality TV has also become the new version, and maybe the last bastion, of primetime family viewing. Reality TV is a big, diverse medium, of course: some of it is raunchy, some of it ugly, some obnoxious (like tonight’s despicable let’s-fire-someone-fest Does Someone Have to Go? on Fox), and some of it very, very good. ![]() But I do know this: when the regular TV season ended last week and the summer premiere season started, it was an exciting time at home, because it meant Masterchef was coming back, and we could watch it together with the Tuned In Jrs. ![]() Thirteen years later, you can debate how well reality TV, overall, has fulfilled its promise as a hell-bound handbasket. Contestants were encouraged to lie and backstab one another! People were eating actual rats! What was going to be next: snuff films? Follow summers ago, when a pair of shows called Survivor and Big Brother debuted on CBS, there were uneasy cries that reality TV was coarsening our civilization.
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