Lifetime’s UnREAL offers a much-needed, refreshing take on the reality TV genre. If you haven’t yet given this new drama a chance, let me convince you why you should.
I’ll be honest: I almost gave UnREAL a pass (despite my eternal allegiance to Shiri Appleby, of Roswell fame, and of course Buffy‘s Marti Noxon).
“Lifetime,” I scoffed. “Reality TV,” I groaned. “What is this, a mockumentary?” I lamented.
But then, Monday night rolled around and UnREAL premiered on Lifetime. I tuned in, because what the hell, right?
… And I stand entirely corrected. I loved it. Everyone needs to watch the pilot immediately.
UnREAL is the antidote to reality television we desperately need. Ironically, the show is almost too real, despite being 100% fiction, and it’s way more painful and scandalous than any legit reality series could ever dream of being.
The series follows Shiri Appleby’s Rachel, a young staff member who works on The Bachelor a made-up reality show titled Everlasting. Returning from probation after an on-screen meltdown, Rachel now has to prove to her boss Quinn (Constance Zimmer) that she can put human decency aside and manipulate the contestants into giving the viewers what they want.
The illusion of choice is brilliantly presented, and serves to flatter the audience: while we know that Rachel and her team are pulling the strings, the contestants still believe that the decisions they make are somehow their own, and not just put into their head to ensure the best possible dramatic outcome.
Also starring are Freddie Stroma (Harry Potter‘s Cormac McClaggen) as Everlasting‘s bachelor, Josh Kelly as Rachel’s ex Jeremy, Craig Bierko as series creator Chet Wilton, and Ashley Scott as contestant Mary.
Although the show is, of course, fictional, co-creator Sarah Gertrude Shapiro actually started her career working on The Bachelor.
And looking at the Everlasting producers’ hard, unapologetic and completely unsympathetic approach to their “meat puppets” on the show, one definitely gets the sense that there is more than a speck of truth in here about how reality television is really made.
(But then, maybe that just means I’m falling into the same trap that reality TV viewers fall into when they start believing that what they see on screen is actually real!)
‘UnREAL’ as an antidote to ‘real’ reality TV
The Lifetime drama somehow manages to appeal to both those who despise reality shows, and those who consume them with a fiery passion.
We watch reality TV because it’s scandalous, and because we want to believe that what we’re watching is real. We hate reality TV because we know it’s all constructed, played for shock value and cliché plot twists, and we, as savvy consumers, feel talked down to.
This is where UnREAL presents the best of both worlds: although it is no more or less real than the shows on which it’s based, we eat it up, because it FEELS real. It feels like we are legitimately being taken behind the scenes and shown what the industry is really like, behind the safeguard of knowing that it’s all fiction, so we don’t have to question the legitimacy of what we’re watching. (Confused yet? It’s all very meta.)
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Whether you love or hate reality TV, the inescapable truth is that we chase the illusion of reality when we consume any kind of media. Some prefer to watch and read things that are explicitly fictional, because then at least they know what they’re getting. Others like to buy into the lie of constructed realities that make themselves out to be genuine: reality shows, game shows, talk shows, documentaries, even the news.
A fact which is often acknowledged but not always remembered, or even believed, is that everything — everything — you see on a screen is a construct. The more care has gone into making something seem real, the more you can probably be sure that it’s fabricated.
UnREAL strips away the illusion. Ironically, it takes a scripted drama to truly reveal reality TV for what it is: no more real than its fictional counterpart. And in an age where the Kardashians literally rule the world, we desperately need a wake-up call.
But what really makes this show worth watching is that it is in no way preachy. UnREAL is as scandalous and salacious as any reality show on the air, so you’ll be thoroughly entertained even as you digest a few hard facts about what really (but not really!) goes on behind the scenes in the fast-paced TV biz.