Seeing the Big Picture

It's Not Sex, So It's OK

Friends of ours told us recently that they pitched a new reality-based show to a certain vulpine network.  The show was a takeoff on Cops that centered around real-life on-the-job footage of the  everyday heroics of firemen as they battle blazes and save lives.  During the pitch, our friends noted that nearly 100 firemen die each year in the line of duty.

"Wonderful!" enthused the net exec. "Will we be able to have at least one death per episode?"

Don't Ask - Don't Tell

And don't forget...

1. The Game Show Network doesn't want anyone to pitch game shows.
2. The Travel Channel doesn't want anyone to pitch travel shows.
3. PAX is still Christian, but... shhhhh ... don't tell anyone.
4. No more battered spouses for Lifetime.  And Oxygen is all about those bigger-than-life bold women (counter-programming Lifetime).
5. Discovery will only talk to you at certain times of the year and explicitly instructs not to ask what might interest them.
6. NO network will tell you what might interest them.

Wonderland?

Like Alice stepping through the looking-glass, working on the other side of the TV screen – as television producers -- is like operating in another world: a slightly-skewed reality that is simultaneously inspiring, challenging, hilarious and truly awful. We’ve met everyone from soporific Caterpillars to manic White Queens…and “taken meetings” that make the Mad Tea Party seem uncomfortably true-to-life. (“Have some wine.” “I don’t see any wine.” “There isn’t any.”)

Funny that we are working in reality television which – as everyone now knows – is about as real as cubic zirconium. But -- even like phony diamonds -- television has several facets, some of which are truly dazzling.  It's the dream of finding that real diamond that keeps us going --  day after day after day.

The purpose of this blog is allow you, dear reader, to wander through Wonderland with us.  Like us, you'll sometimes ask "Is this stuff  really happening?"  We promise you that -- whatever stories you read -- it will be 100% swear-on-our-mother's-lives true... 

God help us all.