As soon as reality TV executives discovered the magic formula of putting a low-status pair of dry lips in front of a row of scowling, high-status eyebrows, they knew they had their cash cow and immediately tossed originality out the window.
Much of the televisual egesta flung in our eyes faithfully adheres to this recipe: buy a desk, hire a row of experts-in-the-industry, and force some shivering pleb to await judgement. They’re all at it: The Singing One, Insert Country’s Got Skills, Cooking Chef.
Some shows have bravely branched out, getting rid of the desk all together in favour of a far more revolutionary empty space. The Block, for example, involves zero sitting. Instead, judgment is passed off screen and relayed to the so-called contestants through a Logie award-winning humanoid.
Should heaven exist, I wouldn’t be surprised if entry depended on a successful pitch to a panel of Simon Cowell-esque seraphim. “You call that a virtuous life? I’ve met pebbles that have done more good than you. I’ve made my decision. It’s time for you to ... GET OFF MY CLOUD.”
Adding to the world of dreams crushed by a row of utter bastards is Shark Tank (Channel Ten), a show about budding entrepreneurs losing all bowel control in front of industry experts or “sharks”. It’s an odd translation of the show’s original title, Dragons Den. Are we going to cull these tycoons and tying them to the back of a boat?
But hey-ho. Sunday’s episode was typical fare. The pitches ranged from inspired to daft, the kind of daft where someone asking $3bn for the world’s first invisible television would stand a better chance of getting investment. Not that fans of the show would complain: the bad ideas are Shark Tank’s more engrossing bits.
Gradually, the nervously smiling, cautiously enthusiastic pitcher gets reduced to a bumbling mess as the sharks gleefully question his or her business plan, financial expertise, childhood memories and right to life. The camera creeps ever closer on the incrementally withering husk of a human, until the TV screen is just a close-up of some microbes swimming around in a bead of sweat. Eventually the poor sod has to gather their clothes off the floor (I don’t remember them coming off), walk out, and give a brief statement in front of some pretty fish tanks about their broken dreams.
OK, so I made some of that up, but pound for pound, Shark Tank’s up there with all 37 programs in Simon Cowell’s current roster for complete humiliation. There are some successful pitches, of course. Lots of them tend to be hybrids of things other people have already bothered to invent. A beer cooler in some cricket stumps. A skateboard briefcase. A hotdog hamburger (more of a sandwich squared than an invention really).
I was starting to detect a pattern. Combine any two common Australian nouns and you’ll walk away with your mind intact and your bowels in control. See if you can guess what the pitch is going to be next time you’re watching. A USB air freshener. A hat you can keep your iPad in. Google Glass in a watch. Easy, see?
Danger Seven
While Seven’s Sydney siege special was blessedly lacking in Nine’s dramatic re-enactments, you have to wonder what wisdom there was in putting the survivors on television so soon. And the questions posed seemed emotionally manipulative and irresponsibly hyperbolic.
At one point, trying to help one victim to describe Man Haron Monis, presenter Mark Ferguson offered: “He looked like danger.” Quite how you manage to look like an abstract concept, I’m not sure, but there you have it. To me he looked strikingly average, which is part of what was so unnerving about the whole tragedy. To anyone who happens to resemble Monis, you are now what danger looks like. Sensationalism at its unfortunate worst.
