Reality, in case you hadn't noticed, is largely monotonous and mostly boring. Sure, there are brief flurries of excitement and love and humour now and then. But for the most part reality consists of forcing yourself out of bed each morning and dragging yourself to work.
We each create little narratives out of our days to make for better work stories and not go insane, but no one is getting voted out of their open-plan office or maliciously and actively plotting the downfall of their co-workers.
Well, at least I don't think they are ... Et tu, office colleague?
Anyways ... Thanks to the bold and inspiring new content strategy over at TV3, our reality output has accelerated exponentially recently. We're watching people singing and dancing and falling in love every other week and if you watch closely enough you can see the genre cogs underneath the local glitz grinding relentlessly away.
To make good reality TV you need certain elements. At the most basic level you need a hero to root for and a villain to hate. Reality producers also look for some crazy to throw into the mix, but they have to work with the contestants they've got. And if what they've got is 12 people playing nice with one another, then what they don't get is a good television show.
These shows simply need villains. For example; once The X-Factor's terrifically terrifying villain Natalia Kills fled the country, the show became dull and boring. Once Chrystal Chenery got booted from The Bachelor, the show was forced to retreat to toilet humour, both human and animal, to keep the audience entertained.
After their departures both Kills and Chenery either said or hinted at the fact producers encouraged them to act villainous or edited their footage to make them seem so. Facing a media scrum at LAX, Kills told reporters, "There are many sides to this story and I am not about to get an entire industry in trouble that has been going on for years and years entertaining the masses."
While Chenery posted a trailer for Lightbox's new dramedy UnReal on Facebook with the comment, "Oh so that's why none of the crew spoke to us because they were setting us up! A nice glimpse into reality TV."
Disregarding the fact Chenery's moan is bewildering as she seems to be actively attempting to shoehorn herself into any and every reality show going, she did do a better job than Lightbox of promoting this programme. And she was on the money, it is a nice glimpse into reality TV.
UnReal is all about the making of a Bachelor-type reality show called Everlasting. It shows the behind-the-scenes manipulations, fiendish plots and devious devices used by the producers to generate a reality show that hooks people in and keeps them watching.
These mainly involve plying contestants with champers and shots, spreading made-up gossip, or outright asking contestants to play up to certain stereotypes to get ahead. In other words, these shows are created by smart people prodding reasonable people into acting massively unreasonably. If the scheming fails, then it's off to the editing room to create the same end result.
Unscrupulous? No doubt. And it's the struggle with this moral dilemma by one of Everlasting's producers that is the crux of the show.
The show's set-up is prime for a mockumentary or exaggerated comedy, but UnReal plays it largely straight, offering a believable and credible insight into how these shows actually get made.
It's entertaining and compelling viewing even if, like me, you're really not into reality television. But if you're jonesing for a reality fix now that all ours have ended, then this is the show for you.
It's smart and sassy and while it's realistic, it's definitely not real. But the best thing is that it doesn't insult your intelligence pretending to be.
