Gogglebox / Reality TV what is the point?

[NorthernSpirit]

I find reality TV mindnumbing, there's one Warner Brothers import that ITV show called The Bachellorete which is basically a bunch of blokes trying to woo some female or a bunch of women trying to woo a bloke along with the over emphisising of the word like in nearly every sentence. Wondered what it was, never again.

Its naff as the whole thing seems to be scripted to a T and plays on everyones emotions, I can see where Made TV got the elements from to create the embarrassing Game Of Attraction which was more or less the same thing, six to eight weeks worth of twaddle on a Wednesday night - I would have rather seen the presenters Beth Krysta Wilson, Melissa Crawford and Yaz Cooke pour chocolate all over themselves for their male co hosts to lick off for 60 minutes.

Channel 4's Come Dine With Me and ITV's ceremic copy Whose Doing The Dishes - I can't see the appeal of watching four people (or eight if its couples) sit at a table and eat some questionable grub on plate.

ITV's Love Island seems to be aimed at the 18-35 market whose viewing habits seems to be 24/7 reality TV non stop. Most of the contestants on Love Island will no doubtly be from Essex or Cheshire and filled to the brim with scantly clad females all necklaced up for some reason and boring males who seem to be obsessed with "hitting the gym" five times a week - nah, pass me a rusty razor blade as I would rather have tetnus than watch s****.

 

[Jonny]

This reminds me of Doctor Who: The Ratings War (an audio drama) that comes under the "Big Finish for free" (registration required to download). One of the many appealing factors is the lampoon of low-grade TV shows.

 

[birchesgreen]

- Love Island - Never seen it, never want to see it by the sound of it. I think half the people only watch it because everyone else does.

Every day in the office my female colleagues talk about this, the one who doesn't watch it seems almost ashamed to admit it and feels left out

 

[Kite159]

I once heard someone call the reality TV shows as "lowest common denominator" telly. Appeals to the masses as a means to escape from their daily routine (in terms of watching 20-30 year old females walking around in their bikinis trying to get some gentlemen to fall in love with them).

As for me personally, give me a good BBC4/channel 5 documentary

 

[Howardh]

I once heard someone call the reality TV shows as "lowest common denominator" telly. Appeals to the masses as a means to escape from their daily routine (in terms of watching 20-30 year old females walking around in their bikinis trying to get some gentlemen to fall in love with them).

As for me personally, give me a good BBC4/channel 5 documentary

Even documentaries are ruined these days for pandering to the lowest common denominator. For a start they spend endless time at the start showing you what's coming up....er, thanks, I've seen it now I'll switch off! But then the restis spent with noise - effects, more noise, whooshes for effect, let's have some noise, flashing fast images, noise....

Someone should show today's doc producers the first 25 years of Horizon, or Carl Sagan's epic....

 

[Kite159]

Even documentaries are ruined these days for pandering to the lowest common denominator. For a start they spend endless time at the start showing you what's coming up....er, thanks, I've seen it now I'll switch off! But then the restis spent with noise - effects, more noise, whooshes for effect, let's have some noise, flashing fast images, noise....

Someone should show today's doc producers the first 25 years of Horizon, or Carl Sagan's epic....

Some documentaries are better than others, the ones I find get ruined are the ones which pop up on BBC1/2 or ITV.

 

[nlogax]

Even documentaries are ruined these days for pandering to the lowest common denominator. For a start they spend endless time at the start showing you what's coming up....er, thanks, I've seen it now I'll switch off! But then the restis spent with noise - effects, more noise, whooshes for effect, let's have some noise, flashing fast images, noise....

Someone should show today's doc producers the first 25 years of Horizon, or Carl Sagan's epic....

Similarly, one of my biggest gripes with newer documentaries is ALL THE BLOODY INCIDENTAL MUSIC. It's a shame we're apparently no longer deemed capable of understanding a pertinent point or important moment without the inevitable sharp pointy musical stick ..a dramatic escalation of synth strings followed by a doom-laden 'paaaaaaaaarp' or sea of cymbals. I'm kinda done with it.

Related; between us on this forum we could bring back Grumpy Old Men and Grumpy Old Women

 

[Howardh]

Similarly, one of my biggest gripes with newer documentaries is ALL THE BLOODY INCIDENTAL MUSIC. It's a shame we're apparently no longer deemed capable of understanding a pertinent point or important moment without the inevitable sharp pointy musical stick ..a dramatic escalation of synth strings followed by a doom-laden 'paaaaaaaaarp' or sea of cymbals. I'm kinda done with it.

Related; between us on this forum we could bring back Grumpy Old Men and Grumpy Old Women

Or a TV Channel Grumpy Old Gits +1
Even sport is infested by sodding music these days. Give us a break....

 

[greyman42]

Regarding The Apprentice, I think people can relate to what the 'contestants' are trying to achieve. Some of them have gone on to do very well for themselves and are respected in their line of work. Alan Sugar and his side kicks are also a big draw as viewers enjoy the drama of 'the boardroom'.
Gogglebox is simply seen as comedy, so it depends whether you find that sort of programme funny.
As for the rest, absolute rubbish. The same as all the soap opera's.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Whats the point in anything? Gogglebox is harmless. It is a guilty pleasure for people and something unintelligent to relax to on a friday night.

Me and my better half are both engineers, spend all day working in relatively high pressure environments and sometimes i dont want an intelligent and cultural documentary, i want something like gogglebox to just be on while i do other stuff like chartership or read this forum or paperwork for a heritage railway.

Love island i do disagree with due to body image issues and what it promotes, however i dont get upset at those that use to escape reality slightly.

 

[43021HST]

I find reality TV mindnumbing, there's one Warner Brothers import that ITV show called The Bachellorete which is basically a bunch of blokes trying to woo some female or a bunch of women trying to woo a bloke along with the over emphisising of the word like in nearly every sentence. Wondered what it was, never again.

Its naff as the whole thing seems to be scripted to a T and plays on everyones emotions, I can see where Made TV got the elements from to create the embarrassing Game Of Attraction which was more or less the same thing, six to eight weeks worth of twaddle on a Wednesday night - I would have rather seen the presenters Beth Krysta Wilson, Melissa Crawford and Yaz Cooke pour chocolate all over themselves for their male co hosts to lick off for 60 minutes.

Channel 4's Come Dine With Me and ITV's ceremic copy Whose Doing The Dishes - I can't see the appeal of watching four people (or eight if its couples) sit at a table and eat some questionable grub on plate.

ITV's Love Island seems to be aimed at the 18-35 market whose viewing habits seems to be 24/7 reality TV non stop. Most of the contestants on Love Island will no doubtly be from Essex or Cheshire and filled to the brim with scantly clad females all necklaced up for some reason and boring males who seem to be obsessed with "hitting the gym" five times a week - nah, pass me a rusty razor blade as I would rather have tetnus than watch s****.

Couldn't agree more.

Every day in the office my female colleagues talk about this, the one who doesn't watch it seems almost ashamed to admit it and feels left out

Ah the pressures of peer pressure, see I think no one really likes reality TV, most people have it on as a distraction or in an attempt to fit in, in a desperate attempt to avoid feeling marginalised by their peers. Although I suppose that's the reason why anything gets popular, a lot of people don't like the subject itself, they just like the feeling of inclusion. Kind of sad really.

Whats the point in anything? Gogglebox is harmless. It is a guilty pleasure for people and something unintelligent to relax to on a friday night.

Ok that explain at least why Gogglebox appeals. I can understand that, although I can never understand how some settle down to it like as though it's the focus of their evening.
See I wish I could switch off in front of a telly program like that, I live with the mother-in-law, she has it on a lot and I find it irritates the living crap out of me. (She has it on a lot less when she realised it drove me up the wall) From an external point of view it's all the long periods of relative silence and then the sudden over the top shouting that gets me, although I don't like that in real life. (I'm fun at parties me) If I need to switch off or concentrate for long periods of time I tend to have music playing, human voices I find incredibly distracting.

Another thing that annoys me about reality TV is it's lazy on the part of producer, you don't really require any writers, pay any actors, or even have any creativeness really, all you need is a bunch of joe public and get them to react to situations, squabble and rut. As part of a uni course on production we learnt the fundamentals of editing coincidental events to create a narrative, (which is reality TV in a nutshell) very easy to do first time, requires little editing skills and imagination.

 

[Typhoon]

Whats the point in anything? Gogglebox is harmless. It is a guilty pleasure for people and something unintelligent to relax to on a friday night.

I used to tune in to Gogglebox if there was a gap in programmes I was watching with the hope that June and Leon would be on. A few other families have been entertaining, measured or amusing but if there were ever antitheses of reality television 'stars' they were Leon and June, genuine people.

 

[whhistle]

Genuine question here, but what is the point of Gogglebox? I mean it's just watching people, watching TV. Like some weird Black Mirror looking glass.

People like to compare themselves to others.
When out walking I look at other peoples houses and gardens to see how they live, or get some inspiration for my own garden perhaps. In this modern day and age, people are generally very interested in other peoples lives. Hence many people use Facebook as a way to "stalk" other people - where you see people with hundreds, sometimes thousands of "friends".

- The Apprentice

It's a different sort of reality.
Watching supposed professionals making themselves look like idiots... it's fairly comedic somestimes.
But, while the winners get their job and keep their head down (the Series 1 winner fell off the face of the earth!), those who have big personalities end up in media somewhere.

- Come Dine with me

This is way past it's use by date.
While the narrator is sometimes funny, again, it's people making fools of themselves.

- Love Island (Say no more)

This is aimed at the 20 year olds of our time.
Gossip is what drives many people, and people love to judge others. Difficult, especially this year with the heavy editing.

- Can't pay we'll take it away.

I find this good to watch, if there's nothing else on.
Again, usually so I can judge the situation. But then I am very interested why people do certain things/act the way they do.

- I'm a Celebrity.

A family favourite...
Celebs making fools of themselves - why not?!

ITV are very good at beating the dying horse though.
I mean, look at how rubbish the X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent do in viewing. I'm a Celebrity is another one. Just like McDonalds revolving Monopoly, followed by American Burgers, followed by the Wrap promo (that we're currently in) - it's getting boring now but there are no more creatives to think of new programmes.

... is my assessment.

TV itself is dying though.
With the growth of Netflix (although that is stuttering) and people wanting to watch things when THEY want to (IE, on demand), broadcast TV may only have another 10 years left.
The only channels to survive will be rolling news, music and shopping channels.
Everything else will move online where programmes will start to have online schedules where things simply become available to watch at certain times.
... is my prediction (but you can see it coming).