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TV at its trashiest
Delicious, too. See unfaithful caught on camera.
By Elizabeth White
For all the production values and prestige that network television has brought to reality programming, there’s still nothing better than low-budget trash.
It’s the primordial muck from which "Survivor" and "Temptation Island" sprang, the goo that surrounds "Jerry Springer" and "Cops," a show that’s maintained its bargain-basement feel in spite of Fox’s ascendancy.
The trash reality programs show the least glamorous people in all their glory, instead of the bartender/actor/spokesperson wannabes.
Their casts are made up of the slices of America least wanted by network television: the fat, the poor, the uneducated, the inarticulate, the strung-out--the people you don’t want sitting on the bus next to you.
But watching their lives fall apart, in often devastating ways, is infinitely more riveting than watching some human resources director get her feelings hurt over a can of beans on a show like "Survivor."
And perhaps the finest distillation of trash TV has come about in the past year, in the form of the syndicated show "Cheaters."
A cross between "Jerry Springer" and "Cops," "Cheaters" rides along with private investigators who catch unfaithful lovers and then stages a public confrontation between the cheater and the cheatee, usually with the other man/woman present.
The P.I. footage is sheer voyeurism, as a shaky and grainy video shows the unfaithful in restaurants, bars and through hotel windows.
The confrontation is like a "Jerry Springer" surprise party. The victim, surrounded by TV cameras, runs up to the unfaithful and the other lover, shouting and cursing, sometimes physically attacking the unfaithful lover.
Meanwhile it slowly dawns on the unfaithful person that not only has he or she been busted, but busted in the middle of a crowded restaurant, on national television. The unfaithful lover goes from shock to remorse to anger in a matter of minutes. If the show were set in a studio, chairs would get thrown and Geraldo’s nose would be broken.
But learning no lessons from Geraldo, the host of "Cheaters," Tommy Grand, always joins the fray. While one guy starts arguing in Russian with his unfaithful fiancée, Grand starts in on the other lover, calling her "free love."
To an unfaithful husband, he says "you should be ashamed of yourself," and then he consoles the wife, telling her, "He’s a coward. It pisses me off too."
"Cheaters" claims to be showing "inspirational chronicles of the human spirit," with guests "taking charge and holding accountable the unfaithful."
But the show’s true redeeming value is in the breath of fresh air it provides. After two years of plastic contestants and over-hyped controversies on the network reality programs, a little focus on rednecks fighting in a parking lot goes a long way.
Audiences seem to agree, since "Cheaters" reaches over two million viewers with each episode, earning a 1.8 to 1.9 nationwide rating. Those numbers have been good enough to boost the show’s clearance to 80 percent this year, after starting with only 20 percent clearance the year before.
Admittedly most of its time periods are late fringe, but producers say the show has been getting upgraded recently, and in a few markets, like Philadelphia and Denver, "Cheaters" runs in primetime.
Reality TV is dying on the networks. Long live low-budget, syndicated trash.
December 10, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Elizabeth White is a staff writer for Media Life.
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