This is REALITY?

So-called "REALITY TV" is more like "ADHD TV" or ANXIETY TV.

There is not enough narrative or plot to call it anything more.

But them maybe that is "reality" these days - a jumbled montage of anxious and inattentive disconnects.

Indeed, the way Reality TV shows are edited is actually anti-plot, anti-narrative, so that the viewer will get yanked back and forth. The shows are edited to lead the viewer one way until after the next commercial break, when the viewer is then led in another, often opposite direction. One segments is cut to suggest the blue team will win. Then after the next slew of ads, the red team comes back for the kill.

Vengeance and anxiety are the "TRUMP" cards of post-modern reality TV. Meaning is subserviant to a mishmash of smirks and subterfuges.

And speaking of trump, could "The Donald" Trump possibly be that abrupt and rude with his real employees? Would his consistently telegenic apprentices be hot properties among any Fortune 500 movers and shakers? Would any corporate board room be lit like a smarmy scene in The Young and the Restless?

I mean that's what reality TV is - the young and the restless go at each other with sharks, slugs, dollar signs in their eyes and jousting - either with verbal barbs or a good gag reflex. They're doing plenty of moving and shaking but not making much sense we might expect from anyone older than about 17.

Ah, the real life, the American life, good and true.

Ugh.


COMING UP NEXT: Diane Sawyer, of the ABC News division, interviews the anorexic yet 'very real' stars of "Desperate Housewives."

It seems in this reality in which we find ourselves swimming up or (more likely) DOWNstream, TELEGENIC is just about everything. It's a cocktail for twitchy boredom. Just ad a little cutthroat competition, a snide mouth, a propensity to tears or smirks, more than a few hints of skin, a pinch of sin, and STIR.