by Rhody » Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:18 am
I am discouraged that my intuition is becoming correct. I am very skeptical about reality shows. With the exception of the very first Real World, I think it is impossible to get a "real" interaction among people who know they are going to be on television. These shows attract aspiring actors and attention whores. The producers want the show to be compelling, so they play games with editing and even the outcome.
A friend of mine told me that Cosmo is an aspiring actor. Supposedly, he had a myspace page that he was using to promote himself, but he made it private due to the show. I don't know if this is true for sure, but if it is, then everything Cosmo does is him portraying a character.
The show is getting very fake. For example, Pradeep threatening to quit and Cosmo being uncomfortable in a speedo seemed way too theatrical to me. I groaned when I saw Mystery say, "you have to escalate early in the interaction or you'll end up in that dreaded zone," and they all said in unison, "the let's just be friends zone!" That was so scripted, rehearsed, and gay.
Plus, the field tests are set up. There's no way a 70:30 female-to-male ratio naturally happens every week like that. And this past episode, they went to an outdoor cafe where there was one guy in the whole place.
My intuition is that Pradeep is going to win. The guy who seems like the biggest ass at the beginning is going to make the biggest gains at the end. They are clearly influencing the outcome, because one minute they said he would be picking one wing, and then the next minute Mystery says, "as you know, there will be no wingman this week." They gave no explanation for the change. Clearly, Pradeep picked Joe W to return the favor from earlier, but they already decided that Joe W was leaving. So they changed the rules to keep the "characters" they wanted in the television show.