I could very easily say that I hate reality TV – Big Brother, The X-Factor, Last Choir Standing, I'm A Celebrity, the whole plethora of low-budget, low-content scheduling that has filled the airwaves in recent years. I could easily say that I hate it, but that would be lending it an importance that it doesn't have.
I don't hate it because to hate it I'd have to care about it. I care only to the extent that the success of these programs says something about the mind set of the people who watch them. It's bread and circuses, entertainment for the undiscriminating, lowest common denominator television. That does bother me. I suspect that we may well be evolving into Eloi and Morlocks. If you didn't understand the reference, don't worry. Be a happy Morlock.
Anyway, while I was away from television for the summer, it seems that there was a program called Maestro. In this program, so I'm told, celebrities took up the baton and pretended to conduct orchestras. The most convincing lasted throughout the competition. I can't help asking, "Why?" What can possibly be the purpose of this exercise? It has me baffled. It's too esoteric for the Morlocks and too prosaic for the Eloi. Where is the audience?
On the other side of the coin if any executive is interested in my concept of "Celebrity Surgeon" where people with no medical training perform a variety of increasingly complex operations, I am willing to negotiate a suitable fee. If a patient dies the celebrity is automatically eliminated. Patients who live get to vote on the best celebrity to keep in.
I think it's a winner. Offers above £10,000 only please, to buy the format.
2 comments:
May I suggest a slight variation in your format? Make both the surgeon and the patient celebrities. If we lose a celeb no-one will notice; there'll be another one along in a minute.
Only one with a time machine could understand your reference.
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