Reality TV & Animal Olympics

This column was first published in the Age on August 7, 2004

There is, it seems, a Reality TV God. Neither Jason and Kirsten, or Steven and Richard, won The Block, and for that we can only be grateful. Iraquis are watching a Reality show called Labour and Materials in which homes that have been destroyed in the war are reconstructed. So far, 3000 families have applied to appear on the show. In the Big Brother Finale Trevor proposed marriage live on stage, though personally I was more moved by Merlin Luck emerging from the house with his mouth taped shut and a sign that said Free th (sic) Refugees. Okay, so he wont win a spelling bee but I thought that staying in the house for several weeks to make a political point was commitment of the highest order. Gretel Killeen did seem shocked by the intrusion of actual reality onto the set, but as Merlin himself has said, 'If national television is not the place to debate about an issue of this magnitude then that's a sad reflection on our nation's priorities.'

And, on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy a couple of weeks ago 66 year old John, who had been in a deep depression since his wife died, cried tears of joy after seeing what the fab five had done to his flat. It was terrific television.

But you have to do a lot of viewing to get the highlights, and none of this changes the fact that the sheer quantity of Reality shows on television is mind numbing. So, I'm sorry ABC, I don't think that doing Reality in costumes makes it classier. Regency House Party (ABC, 7.30pm, Sunday) is getting good reviews, and I did try and watch it, but I just can't take a moment more of a style of television that is, when it comes down to it, about who will shag who, and how drunk will they get in pursuit of said shag. The ABC themselves have described the show as a period version of Big Brother. Bad news for me, but possibly good news for their ratings -Big Brother Finale was the highest rating show on television this year.

In my avoidance of reality television I turned to Channel 7's Animal Olympics (7.30pm, Sunday), which could certainly never be accused of being Reality. Following on from the engaging documentary Animal Intelligence: Socially Smart (Channel 7, Sunday, 6.30pm) this is a show which merges nature docos and sports events by portraying mammals, fish, birds, herptiles and bugs as competing against each other in Olympic events. Special effects scale the participants, including bush babies, maggots, eagles and sharks, to a unified size of 1.85m. This means, for example, that the tiger beetle, which is only 20mm long, has a running speed of 800km per hour when scaled up in size. This approach is rather like that taken in Michael Chabon's novel Summerland in which giants, humans and a range of other creatures are scaled to size through the use of magic so they can play baseball together. Personally, I prefer my animals wild, so I found the effects in Animal Olympics highly contrived, but I have no doubt kids will love it - particularly the shooting event in which caterpillars fire pellets of poo, the fulmar chick aims for the target with regurgitated vomit, and the skunk hits a bullseye with spray from his anal gland.

While this weekend might be fun for both family viewing and, and Reality TV junkies, I have decided to retire, hurt. Perhaps I will follow the example of the chimpanzees on Animal Intelligence and go out grooming with a bunch of friends.

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