So according to Harold Camping (A name, not an action) the world was supposed to end on May 21st and although it didn’t end physically it certainly did culturally as the absolute unthinkable happened and the piss-poor reality (yeah okay) TV show that is “The only way is Essex” won a BAFTA.
It’s hard to believe that this can be the case. The supposed reality of it is about as convincing as the average christmas pantomime and as for the make-up, well I haven’t seen as many orange people since I watched Doctor Who and The Zygons.
An Essex
A Zygon
These people are the supposed role models for the younger generation that show that you don’t need to be a decent, intelligent person to be a TV star. Hell you don’t even need to be talented. Just wait to be picked by some lazy cheap ass TV producer who can’t be bothered hiring writers or directors and instead just picks out some pretty people and hope to God that if they film them for long enough they might say or do something vaguely interesting.
So what’s next for TV? Are we to see regional versions of “The only way is Essex” spring up everywhere across the UK? We’ve already got “Made in Chelsea” and Geordie Shore”. What other shit play-on-words, TV reality shows are gonna be popping up on our screens. No doubt several crap producers are already working on shows like “Sex in Man City”, “Ipswich, Powder and Paint”, “Berks and hers” and maybe even “Sheffield of Dreams”, showing more muscled bound numb-nuts and emptied headed bimbo’s engaging in shallow self absorbed relationships and then bitching about each other behind their backs.
So I guess Essex’s win is to be expected, after all it is a hit show, unlike the dismal “Sing if you can” or Channel five’s minority interest show “The Hotel Inspector”, right?
Well actually no.
Both these shows out-perform “Essex”, in fact when the last episode of “Essex” was shown recently it barely scraped one and a half million viewers and was even beaten by a repeat of Dad’s Army on BBC2! Yes the idea that this is an ultra-popular show that everyone hip is watching is actually a product of the media, desperate to fill pages with anyone who doesn’t mind walking around with their top off, male or female. It isn’t the top rated show on the non-terrestrial channels and isn’t even the top rated show on the satellite channels (“Glee” currently holds that distinction) but worse, it isn’t even the top rated show on ITV2, that distinction is held by Keith Lemon’s Celebrity Juice, in fact
Which I guess in a way fills me with a sense of satisfaction. Yes “The only way is Essex” may have a hard-core youtube following that voted for it night and day at the BAFTA’s but a lot more thought provoking shoes fill out the far higher echelon’s of the ratings. All of the “CSI”’s for one, “Glee” on E4 and Channel 4’s “Supersize Vs Superskinny” which although voyeuristic at least does something to battle both dietary ignorance and body image issues which a thousand and one fashion magazines fill people’s head with. While the newspaper and magazine media want to portray the world being a vacuous shallow place, maybe it isn’t a shallow or vacuous place at all, well, not as much anyway.
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