Reality TV run its course?

Bryan Appleyard hates reality TV about as much as I do. He makes this excellent point about those who think criticising Big Brother and its ilk is elitist criticism of popular taste:

...the pop-elitist defence is always the same – we’re giving the people what they want. This is, of course, ridiculous. It implies that, before Big Brother, viewers were sitting around thinking, “Hmmm, now what I’d really like is a show about a bunch of dysfunctional freaks stuck in a house for three months.”

The truth is that the show and its popularity are an invention of its makers. They choose to make it, they are not compliant servants of popular taste. They don’t like to hear this because it jerks them out of their cool, postmodern amoral-ity by dropping the moral buck right back on their desks. But let’s get real: you did it, you’re responsible.

From what little I notice of its coverage, the current Australian series of Big Brother is being seen as terribly dull. I would guess that it may have one last season to go before even its fans tire of the format completely.

The God will let it rain on South East Queensland again. (That is just my private theory.)