Fear Factor is the latest offering in ’’Reality TV’’. This show is also shown here in Australia. The earliest Reality TV was when CBS experimented with this format more than 30 years earlier, with ’’Wanted’’, which ran from October 1955 through January 1956. But the granddaddy of the reality TV genre is Candid Camera, which has been on television on and off since 1948 (yep, almost since the dawn of the medium itself). and from then on, we have seen many other shows, like Survivor, Big Brother and Temptation Island, to name a few.
Ok, I digress...but it is necessary to lay the foundation for what Reality TV (RTV) is before I begin to criticize it :)...yeah, I also have way too much free time :)
ok, while the concept was new, it was a big hit. Viewers jaded from the same looking TV Soaps and game shows took to reality TV (RTV) with great enthusiasm. Initially, RTV titillated us, with shows like Big Brother a huge hit.
(In Big B, 7 contestants live in a house, doing all the chores, sleeping with each other, having affairs, fighting etc etc, all the time being filmed by hidden cameras...at the end of each episode, the viewers get to vote off 1 contestant)
But the novelty fades fast. How many times can one watch the same semi(and often fully) nude scenes in Temptation Island, hear the same rubbish week after week? Shows like Big B and Temp Island work, ’coz of the preponderance and underlaying themes of sex and nude women.
You also get the feeling after watching a few episodes, that the ’’spontaneity’’ is just an act, and that the participants are acting, rather than being natural in the given situations.
Now in the fear factor ( at last, do I hear :) ?) in some episodes, you get the feeling that the people who do the dare are acting, rather than ’’performing’’ naturally. Also, with so many safe guards built into each stunts, (who wants to face lawsuits from the contestants?) the stunts are actually very ’’doable’’.
Now I know that howls of protests are going up all over mouth shut, but sit back and think about it. Couldn’t you do any of the stunt? You know as well as I do, that there are various safe guards put in place to prevent any accidents.
So, while I like the show Fear Factor, I think of it as just a serial, not something which will have me biting my nails with trepidation and going, ’’Oh god, watch out for that snake..please god, will she do it...oh man, I cant watch...’’
P.S: ok, the stunt in which they have to eat live worms was....gross and really freaked me out!!!