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- #21
jane
Well-Known Member
Don is my sister in law's partner's da and he's about to become a grandpa. I haven't met him, but yah, he seems kinda okay. His grandkid is gonna be mad cute, too. And I think it was a mistake of Patricia McKenna to do the show, although she was the only one trying to convince everyone just to get over the nudist thing and act like adults.
They need to drop the 'charity' angle of this shit. Trying to bring it off as worthy is just embarrassing. And they seem to be using 'charity' as an apology for the show's shitness. "Remember, folks, these people are in here JUST to raise money for charity." Bullshit, my hole, etc. Just give up. Or at least do like CBB and kind of play it down so you can have people eating out of kitty dishes on the floor.
They also keep trying to be mates with everyone -- the 'celebrities', the viewers, the charities, the crowd outside, the viewer, etc. They need to figure out whom they're exploiting and just exploit the fuck out of them. You can see that the camera people and the 'stars' are starting to get matey, or trying to be matey. The camera people should keep their mouths TOTALLY SHUT when the 'stars' are talking to camera. That way, it will make them more uncomfortable, and possibly more amusingly mental. They need to have the phone lines for voting people OUT, not 'saving' them.
The show tries far too hard, but it also tries wrong. If they want to know how to do the formula right, the one that works in the UK and in the US, they need shit like a really good fucking story editor/producer. It's far more manipulative of people's personalities and conflicts, but it's what makes My Super Sweet 16 so fucking hilarious, engrossing, and uncomfortable. But this shit is just embarrassing, which is not what you want the viewer to feel.
They're trying a bit of creativity in the setup, with all the puke and blocked toilets, and bringing in the Dutch nudists, but what they really need is to be a bit clever with every aspect of production.
That and the exploitation. You can't make good reality TV without being exploitive, and without making something that feels a bit wrong to do. And it should feel a bit wrong to watch it. You can't have it both ways, and that's one thing that Irish reality TV tries to do, and is part of what's wrong with Irish TV in general. They have a gimmick that isn't fleshed out, and which just becomes boring very quickly, and they don't build creativity into the technical process. So long as editing isn't seen as a creative task, the reality TV will continue to be total shit. The editor is probably the most important person on the production team in this case. They should be the funniest assholes you know.
One thing that I feel sad about is the disproportionate amount of shite media that is produced, when there are perfectly intelligent, creative and interesting people around who are willing and able to do a much better job. There is something really fucking core missing, lacking, or totally misguided, and maybe I'm on the wrong track because I haven't worked in it much, but it just seems like it shouldn't be as crap as it is. It's not just the tyranny of low expectations, either. If that were the case, there would probably be more exceptions to the crapness, and there are very, very few.
Ugh.
Sorry. Rant over.
Anyway, Scutter, just remember what I have to always tell myself at this time of year: "Not all celebrities are famous."
