Posted 03 March 2020 - 07:41 PM
You know what's interesting about The Bachelor? I watched for a few years back in the day when my wife and I were just dating because she was into it, but after a few seasons you can literally lay out the structure of the series in a narrative storyboard and it's damned near identical every season. It's why "reality" TV became "lifestyle" TV instead....becuase people caught onto the fact that it's all scripted to the nth degree (and thus, not reality), but made to appear unscripted. Do I think occasionally people on these shows get legit hurt, or blindsided? Yes, but I think that more often than not it's the studio making the show who decides that and not the individuals, the editing, ect.
But ever since that Jake dude, did the same "crying on the balcony, can't decide who to pick" thing that Jason did the previous season (or whoever it was)...I started to figure out the formula, and it became so boring to me (and my wife)...becuase why watch the same show each season when the same shit happens to slightly different pretty people? I think that's why stuff like Bachelor in Paradise came out, becuase the studio needed a more off the wall show to distract from how rote and altogether boring the Bachelor/Bachelorette became after a few seasons early on. The proof of all this is in the amount of people who stayed together after the fact....it's like 3 couples isn't it? In how many seasons?
Fun extra fact about lifestyle TV: These people send audition tapes for 1 show and end up on another based on what the studio thinks would provide the best TV. People apply to be on Survivor, and end up on the Amazing Race or Big Brother. Same is true here. My favourite was when this straight up dickwad of a human ended up on Big Brother and he didn't want to be on it, like at all (I THINK he applied for Amazing Race)...so every single chance he got to basically middle finger the studio without actually going against their rules, he did so. It was funny to watch someone in a house full of people bending over backwards to please/accommodate the CBS studios heads, refuse to give any fucks. He was an asshole, but man he really showed that these shows are scripted to the nth degree by being such a wild card.
Fun Fact 2: 'Big Brother Live Feeds' is a thing where you can watch ALL the time (for a price), and the people who watch those feeds always have different people they like and root for than the people who just watch the broadcast, becuase CBS does a heck of an edit to make people either look terrible, or good depending on the narrative they want to sell to get viewers, but it's all a lie.
"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora
“Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone.” ~Ursula Vernon