The hell has started.
This week, networks have once again begun the proliferation of reality television programs, beginning with “Temptation Island,” which premiers tonight on the Fox television network.
“Temptation Island” takes four unmarried couple,s who are in serious relationships, to paradise. The catch? Also on this paradise island are 26 single people, hungry for love and looking to match up with someone else on the island. The couples are split up and each person is set up on three dates with single people they have been deemed compatible with. In theory, the whole setup is meant to test the strength of the couples’ relationship, not to break them up. But there is the promise that splits could happen.
The first problem one could see with such a realistic portrayal of love, lust and betrayal is that these couples are either very in love, know they are able to withstand the temptation and are just on the island to get a free trip, or they care more about fame, fortune and future commercial offers than the love of their mate. Therefore, it seems highly improbable that viewers will sympathize and relate to the people on the show who are seemingly only there to promote their standing in life.
Secondly, the show has the Fox network messing with an area of people’s lives where a television network should keep out. Fox tried interfering in love lives before with its special, “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire,” which ended with a former emergency room nurse out of a job and in Playboy, and a previously unknown millionaire now a household name.
With the outcry after Darva Conger and Rick Rockwell wed on the one-night special, one wouldn’t think the network would be trying such a risky proposition again. This shows what a network will do for ratings.
And ratings are the problem with television today.
The couples on “Temptation Island” will be testing their relationships in front of millions of viewers - viewers that Fox hopes will bring in the advertising revenues to keep the network thriving. Without this revenue, the network would collapse and Americans would cease to be subjected to the immoral and not altogether humorous reality shows it keeps throwing at us.
After “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire” aired, there was a great outcry about how horrible this sort of show was, but viewers had still turned it on and watched. And that’s what Fox pays attention to - the number of people who watched its program, not the number of those who thought it was a major waste of their time.
Now, because of the ratings that “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire” brought the network, “Temptation Island” has been created in hopes of luring in more viewers - even people who condemn the show but still tune in help to continue the cycle of bad television shows airing for Americans to digest.
“Temptation Island” is not the only reality show being broadcast into America’s television sets. Hopefully “Big Brother” won’t be making a reappearance, but “Survivor: The Australian Outback” is making its debut Jan. 28 after the Super Bowl. This time there will be less suspense, and will most likely be more predictable than the first installment of “Survivor.” The new survivors undoubtedly watched the first “Survivor” and carefully studied Richard Hatch’s every move and strategy. Alliances are nothing new now, and so “Survivor: The Australian Outback” will not be the innovative show the original program was.
However, what ratings place on a pedestal, ratings can also tear down. If people refuse to be subjected to a live-action, Aaron Spelling-like puppeteering of people’s lives, the show won’t last more than an episode or two. Then Fox can go back to showing more episodes of “The Simpsons,” which, although not high-quality television, is at least fiction and promoted as such. When Bart gets picked on by Homer, no one’s life is being played out before our eyes and then dissected by gossip columnists and early-morning talk show hosts.
Kristyne E. Demske, State News in-depth reporter, can be reached at demskekr@msu.edu.
