Tuesday 28th November 2006

So, continuing yesterday’s exploration of new reality TV formats, let’s keep this good work up, people. And if you think that I’m actually writing this on the 3rd of December and can’t remember what happened on Tuesday the 28th of November then you would be mistaken. This is far more important – this is about our futures. We’ll clean up from this. And obviously I’m not going to do all the work so I’ll expect you to submit your own suggestions.

My dear friend A has just been promoted and is now the Acquisitions Manager for a TV distribution and production company and so as soon as we hit on the BIG ONE, she’ll get to work pretty much immediately. So let’s create some TV boys and girls.

Okay, we’ve already got four cracking ideas so lets continue with

5. Tears For Fears

The beauty of this is it works equally well with washed up celebrities and desperate members of the public alike. Basically the contestants are put into a perfectly empty and transparent room surrounded by cameras. It is fantastically brightly lit and there is no-where to sit or relax. The contestants will, at first, revel in their TV environment and play up for the cameras whilst babbling on about themselves, but then, after about three weeks, they will begin to tire and become more subdued. After this they are separated from each other in a big Friday night episode and made to sit in their own brightly lit cells where a booming voice asks them to question what they are doing and why they would bother coming on a show like this? Gradually they will all be reduced to tears of insane self doubt and loathing, both the members of the public for being so desperate, and the celebrities for their lost status and careers. The first to cry every drop of moisture out of their bodies until they are a disgusting dried out husk will be crowned King or Queen of idiots and instantly forgotten by celebrity magazines that had been following the ordeal whilst in a cruel twist of fate the runner up will become the most famous person in the UK and get showered with advertising and late night TV presenting deals.

6. You Don’t Have To Put On The Red Light

A groundbreaking show where twelve members of the public live in a house for a year under the assumption that the nation is watching their every move. But not only are the cameras not rolling, there aren’t even any cameras. Nor is there a TV show. And when they finally get released they will find that no-body even had the slightest idea the project was taking place. Their families, who will have presumed they were dead, might be curious to see them again, but nobody else will. They will simply return to their former lives, loads of unpaid bills, have to find a new job and scan the papers for auditions for new reality shows that may or may not actually be broadcast on some TV channel or other. Many will actually choose to take part in the second series of You Don’t Have To Put On The Red Light, the morons.

7. National Enemy

Ten contestants, or whatever, live in a house, or whatever, and whilst they think the programme is being broadcast in the UK, it isn’t. It’s being broadcast only in Sudan. Unbeknown to the contestants, anti-Sudan posters have been superimposed onto the walls of the house, and whatever the contestants say has been dubbed into whatever language they speak in Sudan and makes all the contestants out to be screaming racists who loathe Sudan and it’s people. Then, after they have become the most unpopular people in Sudan for apparently saying stuff like “Sudan is gay� and “Sudan is rubbish� in the diary room, they will be told they are leaving the house, loaded into a army transporter aircraft and left on the end of a runway in Sudan with a big sign above them which reads ‘Look familiar? Yep, it’s us!’ They are then tortured for weeks before being executed in the biggest celebration Sudan has ever witnessed.

Well, now it’s over to you. Let’s have a few ideas soon please, then we’ll split the procedes.

And A, if you already like the sound of any of my ideas then we can have a chat about it. Don’t have to get the others involved.

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