Favorite Reality-Type Shows?

Storage Wars is pretty harmless.

It's not like it's based on manufactured drama, or at least I don't think that's why people watch.

Then again, I've watched the show for all of three weeks, but I've probably seen 40 episodes during that span.

I like Big Brother, but I doubt I would watch it if it was on at anytime other than the summer.

I lost interest in Celebrity Apprentice, Amazing Race and Survivor this past season. I watched the Celebrity Apprentice finale in about 30 minutes this morning.

 

Great show. However, there is no one crazier than Shelby from "Swamp People". Crazier than the proverbial s***-house rat.

 

I miss the past seasons, when he'd always be in some big great room and you could tell when the post edits would cut in because his voice would go from echoing to sounding like he was in a studio.

 

I like The Amazing Race, and Project Runway interests me, too, although I haven't watched that as faithfully.

TAR is intended to be a great concept, a great experience, with a hopefully positive, once-in-a-lifetime, potentially life-altering impact for participants, and viewers can share in it vicariously. I've always loved that about it, and it's one of the few reality shows that has tried for that, and done it without adding in too many new, gimmicky things in recent years, although I am a fan of neither the yield, nor the speed bump or the stupid pre-first leg elimination.

(I could like Survivor for many of the same reasons I like TAR, except that there is almost no way to win Survivor in what I would consider a truly deserving, people-enhancing manner -- IMO, Ethan is the only one to have accomplished it -- and I don't like that aspect of the show. I am virtually never happy that someone has won that show).

Project Runway just interests me, for the topic, and the talents. I like to see what contestants come up with, and what I think of their creations. I used to feel the same way about the Top Chef shows, and I still watch them sometimes, but not as much now.

It seems that the longer these shows are on, and the more the rage they become, then the more staged, showy, or gimmicky they seem to get, and they're wrecked for me.

The producers go trying to add in new elements, tricks and things done supposedly for shock value and ratings, and what I usually find is that the show was better when it was just simpler, more straightforward and honest.

This is not an ongoing reality show in the same way that most of these talent- and contest-type things are, but I also love "I Shouldn't Be Alive." And what I really watch a lot of is "renovation TV." All the home design and renovation shows, and the house-hunt and house-flipping shows on HGTV are good, valuable and fun entertainment for me -- probably because it's something I'd love to do, myself, if I ever had money.

 

I have watched it so much that I am obsessed to see Brandy naked.

It is better than Auction Hunters in that it shows them fail. You never see Ton and the other guy get a bad unit it seems.

 

Brandi and Jarrod are my favorite two on the show. Their dynamic comes across as pretty real. They care about each other, but they love to give the other shit.

 

They all bring something to the table.

Darrell cracks me up when he talks down to the others then talks about hitting the flea markets.

Barry's and Darrell's backgrounds are pretty interesting.

 

It's a good group dynamic.

 

As somebody who has known the Robertson clan for years now thanks to a father-in-law in the duck business, I love Duck Dynasty ... even though it is the most obviously scripted "reality" show I've ever seen.

 

What's Barry's background? He obviously rich as hell, like he comes from old money.

 

I think he had a huge produce distribution business that he sold.

 

Moonshiners
Rocket City Rednecks
Survivor
Celebrity Apprentice