The new craze on American screens is Reality TV. Two prime-time shows have captured the curiosity of the American Public, and there are sure to be more. On Survivor, a group of men and women of all ages are stranded on a beautiful but inhospitable island in the South China Sea. Participants have to forage for food, tapioca roots in the woods and elusive fish from the sapphire sea. All too often we see them sitting around the bonfire, legs raw with mosquito bites, grimly eating rice (a staple the show's producers provide, in an effort to avoid having them eat each other).

They sleep on wooden platforms, and rats crawl over legs and arms in the night. Challenges are contrived each week to keep the public interested, like the meal of squirming larvae eaten by a few luckless participants. Each week the group forms a "tribal council" to vote one unlucky, or lucky, soul off the island. We are down to eight people now and the backbiting is intense.

Yes, the island is a paradise, but give me a paradise with a pool and room service. Living on that island looks like a nightmare. I have to say though, that however bad the island is, the Big Brother house is even worse.
Big Brother has now come to the United States. It has already proven to be a winning TV formula in The Netherlands, Spain, and Germany, and Britain is trying it too. A house in Los Angeles is wired with microphones and hundreds of cameras, and a multi-generational group of 10 Americans have to coexist there for three months with no contact from the outside world.

The producers are, of course, hoping they do not coexist too peacefully. Conflict makes good TV. The first member to be voted out, Will Mega, an egocentric black man who seemed to enjoy getting in everyone's face, was the one most likely to shake things up. But we still have a half-baked love triangle, involving a bitchy triathlete-slash-exotic-dancer, and a pink-haired virgin fighting over a frat boy who is enjoying the attention.

The only reality TV for years has been MTV's The Real World. Each season, the house that seven impossibly good-looking strangers share gets more and more gorgeous. I have a feeling that the Big Brother lot thought they would get to live in a hillside mansion or luxurious townhouse. But the Big Brother house is a dull Los Angeles suburban house, with a square of green and a tiny swimming pool out back. The night the 10 strangers entered the drab abode you could see their faces fall.

It remains to be seen if the conversation will get more open and interesting on Big Brother. I think the multi-generational angle is supposed to promote learning between the generations, a more interesting exchange of ideas, and less Real World-style whining. Actually come to think of it, only two generations are adequately represented; twenty-something cuties and a couple of people in their forties who seem to do nothing but sit out on the patio, smoke endlessly and look bored. The sole housemate in her thirties is a reasonable and educated black woman. She works for the United Nations. Every so often a look crosses her face and you know she is saying to herself, "What on EARTH was I thinking?"

They are already recruiting for the second Survivor series, which will be set in the Australian outback. Yes, all the horror of the first series, but without the ocean to cool off in.

Five thousand people turned up to a San Francisco casting call.

The real fun of Reality TV for the participants is the dizzying round of talk shows once you've been voted off. The Today Show, Good Morning America, Letterman, Leno. That's the real fifteen minutes. For a few weeks America wants to hear the opinions, thoughts, and one-liners of people who became famous, not because of talent or an invention or best-selling book, but because they fit the demographic profile of a TV show and were thrust into the limelight. Maybe they pretend to themselves that the fame is deserved.

I have to admit I am glued to Survivor and Big Brother when they are on. It's gripping stuff. I'm waiting for someone to develop scurvy on the island, and I long for the bitchy dancer to break down in tears one night on Big Brother.
What can I say? I am a member of the American viewing public, a willing pawn of TV programmers. Just don't make me eat, sleep, and whine on camera.