Unreality TV...
Apr. 4th, 2003 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuI watched a little bit of Scare Tactics
tonight on the SciFi channel. I understand that reality tv is all the
rage and (most important) cheap to produce. But even so, I don't think
this show is long for the world. Shannon Doherty is very attractive.
I don't think I'd like her if I actually knew her, and I don't think
about her much--but when she's onscreen she gets my attention. But
that ain't enough. And neither is the basic gag of Scare Tactics: scary
practical jokes.
Never mind that the show requires friends to lie to and manipulate friends. Never mind the basic disrespect for everyone involved. This show commits the worst possible sin for a television show: it's lame. I saw the "friends go camping in an RV" incident that was featured so prominently in the ad blitz. I also saw a skit (I say "skit" advisedly for reasons expressed below) in which the victim is taking part in testing of heart monitors and a fellow testee supposedly dies of what is done to her, and a staged kidnapping of Shannon Doherty in front of a woman who in her hotel room to discuss a "gopher" job.
All of these incidents are quite short (given enough time to think, I suspect even the dimmest victim is likely to catch on). The camera work switches between medium-distance shots from obviously stationary cameras, presumably hidden, and shots that certainly look to me like they were taken by cameramen out in the open. So much so that I question whether this is all candid or whether they're also adding "recreated" footage from staged replays.
The lack of affect I see in many of the victims makes me wonder as well. Certainly if I saw someone seemingly killed by medical stupidity, I'd react more strongly than the victim of that joke. And if I saw someone kidnapped right in front of me, I'd at least get on the phone to the police. In both cases, it looked to me like either they'd restaged the incident to get better shots or the victim sensed something wrong about the scenario (and was thus more puzzled than anything else), or both.
Allen Funt did it a hell of a lot better thirty years ago. And with a much kinder and gentler sensibility to boot.
Never mind that the show requires friends to lie to and manipulate friends. Never mind the basic disrespect for everyone involved. This show commits the worst possible sin for a television show: it's lame. I saw the "friends go camping in an RV" incident that was featured so prominently in the ad blitz. I also saw a skit (I say "skit" advisedly for reasons expressed below) in which the victim is taking part in testing of heart monitors and a fellow testee supposedly dies of what is done to her, and a staged kidnapping of Shannon Doherty in front of a woman who in her hotel room to discuss a "gopher" job.
All of these incidents are quite short (given enough time to think, I suspect even the dimmest victim is likely to catch on). The camera work switches between medium-distance shots from obviously stationary cameras, presumably hidden, and shots that certainly look to me like they were taken by cameramen out in the open. So much so that I question whether this is all candid or whether they're also adding "recreated" footage from staged replays.
The lack of affect I see in many of the victims makes me wonder as well. Certainly if I saw someone seemingly killed by medical stupidity, I'd react more strongly than the victim of that joke. And if I saw someone kidnapped right in front of me, I'd at least get on the phone to the police. In both cases, it looked to me like either they'd restaged the incident to get better shots or the victim sensed something wrong about the scenario (and was thus more puzzled than anything else), or both.
Allen Funt did it a hell of a lot better thirty years ago. And with a much kinder and gentler sensibility to boot.
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