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William Shatner to Star in New Reality TV Series
Gildor writes "The small town of Riverside, Iowa has long billed itself as the birthplace of James T. Kirk. So they were thrilled when William Shatner came there to film a Star Trek prequel about the early life of Kirk. Except there was no movie. After about 9 days, Shatner announced they were actually filming a reality TV mini-series."
When are people going to stop allowing the networks to shove this filth down their throats?
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
Kahhhhhhhhnnnnnnn
I thought he was Canadian.
I wonder where the guy is who's sitting around thinking "you know what our fall lineup needs? another reality show!"
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They should team Shatner up with Hasslehoff.
A Space / Beach setting with the Olsen twins thrown in as well... with a reality twist maybe ?
Money baby... money.
The networks are out to make money, not be your friend. They wouldn't be airing reality TV if they didnt make money at it.
However, the profit margins on a reality TV show are MUCH higher. They don't have to pay expensive actors, they don't have to build or maintain sets, they don't need to hire extras from the screen actors guild, etc. They can even usually do product placements *on* the shows to make more money.
Then you have shows like American Idol - not only is the show cheap, but afterwards, they have an artist that is guaranteed to sell at least a few records - and they don't have to spend any money promoting them!
The marketers that convinced the masses to watch these shows are pure genius. And the networks are laughing all the way to the bank.
According to the article, Shatner, when he announced it was a hoax, gave the town $100,000 as a gift. The crew of the "film" donated $12,000 to the library. Most people where just happy to have him in town...and Shatner said it wasn't going to make fun of anyone - the reality TV show was when a big Hollywood production company comes in to a small town.
They also spent $1,000,000 to make the show, much of that going into the towns economy. What would be REALLY cool was if the reality show went over well and Shatner decided to actually make the movie into a real movie. That could be pretty cool, and it would already have tons of publicity and marketing started for it.
Maybe we DID take the blue pill. You wouldn't remember anyway.
I guess it would make sense for Shatner to have a cameo in whatever Trek show they might make about Kirk, but he won't be playing Kirk in any prequels :)
But reality TV? Blech. I'd rather have a 73 old old Shatner trying to play a 30 year old Kirk :)
This seems to be a going trend for TV producers to claim they are working on project A in order to get people to unwittingly participate in project B... here on Slashdot not to look ago there was a warning story about MTV Networks fooling experts into appearing on a Comedy Central project called "Crossballs"
MTV Networks seems to be making a habit of this. MTV itself fooled a half dozen college students who thought they were interning on a music video project into being the stars of Faking the Video. And let's not forget TNN/SpikeTV's project called The Joe Schmo Show.
There oughta be a law against these things... because apparently basic fraud hasn't caught up to when fraud is being done in the name of TV.
No, THIS is his low-point, William Shatner's Spplat Attack, a DVD of a Star Trek-themed day of paintball. A friend bought this and brought it over one night.
It was painful.
Very painful.
How painful was it? There was actually a moment when I wished I was watching Star Trek V instead.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
It would be very appropriate for them to drive the "Shatner / Hasslehoff Industries Two Thousand".
;-)
cLive
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
This isn't a "good thing all around". It's a terrible thing. Basically, a bunch of people in "the biz" decided it would be funny to fool a small town community. They came in, lied, manipulated, and essentially disrespected these people, then decided that their trust was worth about $100,000. The donated money is a bribe, plain and simple, to buy off the feeble stirrings of conscience in Shatner, et al.
I see this happening more and more, and it's starting to get to me. People aren't here for your entertainment. Real people aren't the Sims, for Pete's sake. They don't go about their lives just to relieve the tedium of yours. It's a bad thing to treat people as if they were just means to be used in achieving your ends, whether that's something cartoony grand or as mundane as filling half an hour of that gaping void that is your life.
People are not means only.
I don't care that they got "genuine reactions" and "true feeling" and all that other crap that producers of shows like this believe justify their deceptions. In the end, a bunch of Hollywood types decided that small town people can be easily duped for the entertainment of a jaded national audience.
And for all those who asked, back when the reality craze fist hit, what harm Survivor etc. could do... well, here we are. These people didn't volunteer for the reality show; they were impressed into service, kidnapped.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
people WANT to watch realityshit.. sad truth.
Actually, I think more people than not want to watch something, they don't really care what it is. I know people who just flip through the channels trying to find something worth watching. They're not in front of the TV because there's a show they want to watch -- they're there because it's their default mode of existence, and they try to find a show they can tolerate watching. I suspect a fair percentage of the "reality" TV watchers are the same: they're watching it because it's what's on, not because it's anything they would watch if there was something better competing with it. The creators make it because it's cheap and easy, so it's what's on. The viewers are making a choice between "reality" TV and no TV, not "reality" TV and something else worth watching.