Is it just me, or are all those so-called Reality Shows getting on your last nerve? Every time you turn on the television today there are more and more of them. And they seem to grow more and more bizarre in television’s search for ratings. There is Survivor, where contestants are dropped off on some remote location and have to compete for cash and other prizes. Survivor is considered the mother of American reality TV because it was the first highly-rated and profitable reality show on broadcast television in the USA.

The premise behind Fear Factor supposedly was so people could confront their worst fears by doing some ridiculous dare. Even those promos frightened me. The sight of that crazy person standing in the middle of a bunch of writhing snakes gave me chills every time I saw it, as did the one where the woman allowed rats the size of house cats, crawl all over her. Why don’t they just do a show called, Yes I’m Crazy and I will Prove It To The World for a Million Dollars, and call it a day? All this just goes to prove that folks will do anything for money or see themselves on TV.

Reading the news on-line this morning there was an article about a DUTCH reality television show in which a terminally ill woman wants to select one of three contestants to receive her kidneys when she dies. The show is due to air this week despite criticism that it pushes the boundaries of the format too far. You think?

The Dutch government wants the show De Grote Donorshow (The Big Donor Show) to be dropped because it is "unethical" and “wretched” but the broadcaster, BNN said the show would highlight the difficulties of searching for kidney donors.

On the show, the woman who is unnamed in the article will get candidates' histories, profiles and will talk to their families and friends. Viewers will be able to send text messages to advise her. A noble gesture perhaps, because of the scarcity of available organs, but it sounds too weird to me. How does one decide who should get a needed life-saving body part? 
There is nothing remotely realistic about reality shows. At least not the reality many of us know.  For most of us reality is “robbing Peter to several Pauls or Paulettes” (pondering whether to pay our mortgage, Georgia Power, AT&T or the gas company when they’re  all due around the same time each month).  For a true dose of reality, the producers of these shows need to come to some real folks’ homes. As reality for many of us is sticking our hands in a sink full of dirty water in an attempt to unclog our kitchen sinks with a Barbie plunger. True reality is experiencing a full-blown case of PMS, without a Kit Kat or Snickers in sight.
Reality is the horror of man’s inhumanity to man, and the evil that men/women do. Our prize? Certainly not a million dollars! Our prize is that after it is all said and done, that we are still standing.