Fantasy Television

The Counter Movement to the Reality Show Era

http://www.realitytvworld.com

http://www.abc.go.com/primetime/lost/

http://www.abc.go.com/primetime/invasion/

http://www.nbc.com/mediun

During the past decade, America has become a "reality TV culture". This is not surprising. We have been primed for such a culture by game-shows for decades. Early on, we were able to feel the twinge of the excitement of the "un-scripted and un-predicatable" nature of reality television as John and Jane battled it out on "The Wheel of Fortune", or "Who Wants to be a Millionare". This gameshow background paired with the dawning MTV's "The Real World" opened the floodgates for the "reality TV era".

We, as a nation, are bombarded with "reality" television on every channel. Based on its popularity, every major network has birthed some form of reality vice. They come in every color, shape, and size. Today there are reality television shows about movie stars, singing careers, modeling careers, survival, the corporate ladder, cooking, home building, home re-modeling, home-cleaning, motorcycles, young adults, personal makeovers, dating, nannies, losing weight, etc. The listings go on and on. The television market has become entirely saturated with reality television and the false illusion of what reality is.

As the market for reality television has grown, television networks have been placed against each other in a competition for viewers. Only the most bedazling and intruiging shows will survive. Because of his competition, television networks have made the push for "racier" reality TV. In the process, these reality shows have been tweeked, prodded, and scripted to add excitement, initially killing the reality in reality television. However, we as a nation have failed to descipher the difference between the illusion of reality television, and actual reality.

The reality television monster has terrorized us for too long. People are beggining to tire of reality and thirst for things that go beyond reality. Fantasy genres have begun to infiltrate the major networks as a kind of counter balance to reality television. These networks have made a genius decision. They are using our growing weariness of reality television to fuel the popularity of the "novel" and "refreshing"counterbalance to reality television, as a means of re-boosting their ratings. Shows like ABC's "Lost" and "Invasion" deal with mystery and sci-fi aspects, while NBC's "Medium" covers the grounds of the supernatural.

These major networks are simply using lessons from history to predict how people will react to certain genres. They know that eventually we will tire of one and crave a genre that differs entirely from the one we have grown bored with. You could say that it is a modern day movement from TV "realism" (although it be a twisted form of it) to TV Romanticism.