Jose Millionaire ... of Death!
I understand that there's this "unreality television" craze going on.

By "reality television," I mean taking strangers from all walks of life and observing how they act in regular situations. Blind Date, for instance, or MTV's The Real World, or even the British import Big Brother to an extent.

"Unreality television," however, places strangers from all walks of life into situations that they would never find themselves in were it not for money / fame. These contestants invariably look stupid, immoral, naive or all of the above. Consider Joe Millionaire or the original Survivor, or the newest bid, Paris and Nicole Hilton's The Simple Life.

I don't know why people like these shows. The only possible result of putting strangers in situations they're unaccustomed to is that they'll look foolish. They'll be bad at it. Accountants are bad at manufacturing log rafts, women are bad at selecting a mate honestly when they're misled about the guy in question, and billionaire heiresses are bad at milking cows. It's not that hard to pick a stranger, find something they'll be bad at, and point a camera at them long enough to come up with embarassing footage. And what do you get out of watching someone fail at something they'd never try otherwise? "Ha ha, serves them right for being so good at their other job, leaving them completely unprepared for the harsh realities of a rope-ladder obstacle course on a Pacific island owned by CBS!"

Hey, "reality" TV show fans, I've got a concept to pitch: Break the Alky. Fox picks a recovering alcoholic and pretends to kidnap his wife, kill his child, and get him fired from his job - all with the consent of those involved, of course. A camera crew then follows him to see how long it'll take for him to turn back to the demon of liquor after having denied it for so long ... and then we watch the hilarious results! Look - man at his lowest! Point and laugh, you slack-jawed chimps.

Here's another one for you: Jose Millionaire ... of Death! A dozen beautiful women are flown off to a mountain villa in Spain, where they must compete for the affections of three eligible bachelors. However, in the fourth episode, a "faction of Basque separatists" - trained stunt actors, actually - overtake the villa and hold the contestants hostage! Watch as the terrorists force their captives to humiliating lows, like choosing which bachelorette should die to feed the other! Or putting their daily gruel ration at the end of a treacherous precipice and making them walk above a two-thousand foot ravine to get it! Ha, ha, look! When people are lied to about the extremity of their situation, they act like craven cowards and buffoons! We, who are separated from them by no more than a thin TV screen, are so much better than they.

Is there some hidden appeal to reality TV that I'm missing? Am I the only one who's not amused by how contemptible human beings can be made to appear to act - not, as the producers would have you believe, how contemptible they actually are? And would the latter alternative be that much better?