Reality shows kill TV magic

As a child I was hooked on Saturday morning cartoons, awakening early each weekend to divulge in the Smurfs, the Snorks and a slew of other non-sensical creatures.

Fast forward fifteen years to a rainy afternoon last month, when I agreed to baby-sit my young cousin. Almost looking forward to a relaxing afternoon of cartoons and cheesy sitcoms, my reverie was rudely interrupted by the child's command decision to watch the all-day Real World/Road Rules marathon on MTV.

Doubtlessly, the original Real World and its entire reality television concept was a novel idea in the beginning, but the past year has beaten reality television into the ground. Sitcoms --with their always fixable problems and abnormally close knit families -- allowed normal people thirty minutes, minus commercials, to escape the ennui of everyday life.

But no longer is this the case. Audiences now delight in the flaws and foibles of real life, as experienced by others, and rejoice in exploiting the mundane and the common.

Maybe I am in the minority in that I do not want my leisure time filled with other people's work, fights, struggles and strife. Unfortunately, there seems to be no escaping it. Each of the major networks has thrown in their reality contribution. They seem to proliferate on cable, and MTV, the impetus for all this, has begun a new tradition. Reality of the Stars, a poor man's lifestyles of the rich and famous, with the addition of Cribs and The Virgin Chronicles, are the latest shows to hit the reality craze.

Cribs, a sneak peek into the homes of the hippest, but oftentimes interior design challenged celebrities, has been extremely successful this past year. It takes the viewer into the homes of rap stars, pop stars and anyone who has been in the top five of TRL.

Virgin Chronicles is due out this fall. Hosted by John Stamos (yes, Uncle Jesse), the Chronicles plan to expose the first-times of pop stars and actors, then invite the enlightened partner to share his or her version of the event. Uncle Jesse will then pour over the little details to decipher the "real story," dissecting the most uncomfortable and embarrassing moments of the lucky pair's first time. This is a far cry from his hair-obsessed, diaper-changing days on Full House.

This is too much information for my personal comfort. Seeing Puff Daddy's bidet was one thing, but going with him to the drug store to buy that first box of condoms is entirely another. There are some things we never need to know.

And, for that matter, neither does my little cousin, who should have been rejoicing in Saved By the Bell, the new new new class at noon on a Saturday rather than watching Tammy kick David out of the house or worrying about Ruthie's drinking problem on MTV. The magic of television has truly disappeared, leaving in its wake the banalities of reality.

Who is to say when this trend will begin to taper. Most of us agreed that it would end with Richard Hatch's fifteen minutes of fame, but it has not. The networks -- from ABC to CBS -- are cyclically replacing sitcoms with reality shows, and why shouldn't they? Reality television is certainly cheap and easy to produce, and the ratings for shows like Survivor are through the roof. It is a little more than a complicated home movie, with a good editor and equally bad lighting.

The truth remains that reality can be boring, even someone else's, whether it is on a desert island or in a fully decorated and furnished house in New Orleans. But maybe that is the reason people like these shows. Their own reality is becoming so boring, so typical, that rejoicing in the tedious lives of others has become stimulating. Reality television is still a form of escapism; viewers are just escaping into something more real than fiction, yet less real than their own lives.

Maybe the answer to this problem lies in attempting to make our own lives more interesting, rather than watching what others do to confuse theirs.

Six episodes of the Miami Real World saga later, the rain cleared, and I took the little girl down to the playground. There were no major conflicts, aside from a small squabble over a swing set, and no real excitement, but the afternoon proved itself to be more relaxing and enjoyable than a morning filled with other people's issues.

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