Reality TV Breakdown

I have been watching Big Brother, I'm sure most people have seen at least one episode. I found it extremely entertaining at the beginning although its gone down hill a bit (though that may be because I'm not really watching it so much). Endemol seem to have the formula a bit better this time, they must have realised that what is most interesting about any system is not so much the system but the break down. Systems in themselves are fascinating but equilibrium tends to be an incredibly boring state. Last years Big Brother was in a state of consistent equilibrium, one might argue that it was like watching an entropic system. This year things are consistently on the limit, always on the verge of a breakdown.

None of the contestants are particularly interesting by themselves, in fact they're fairly generic. Each of them conforms to some sort of stereotype; the overly camp guy, the well turned out gay guy, the body builder, the wannabe gangster, the ditzy art student etc etc. However, put them in a confined space with no exterior forces exerted upon them and their dynamics begin to change and they begin to self organise. As a group they become more interesting than they would individually. Bodies flow towards different attractors, bifurcations occur that cause mass rupture (such as the incident when the security guards had to be brought in). As the system seems like it might be heading towards some sort of stability the producers add a new body into it in the form of the new contestant. The dynamics constantly change, with people hating each other one moment and chatting away the next.

The best reality TV show that's been on TV is, in my opinion, 'The Experiment'. It was an attempt to recreate a psychology experiment that was done when two groups were put into a prison, one taking on the role of guards, the others as prisoners. The guards that they chose were all pretty wet and they had prisoners who were all pretty hard; a martial arts experts obsessed with Orwell and an ex-crack addict among others. Inevitably the experiment (like the Stanford Prison Experiment) went wrong. Without exterior forces the system began to organise in such a violent way that it broke down and it ended up being cancelled. Ruptures occurred around the strongest of the characters who directed the flows according to their own desires and ended up overturning the power balance. The dynamics of this group was vastly more interesting than those of Big Brother but the premise is still the same; systems are at their most interesting around a point of rupture or at a breakdown. It tends to make for good TV, hence the mismatched personalities in such shows as Big Brother and Wife Swap. Though really, there's only so much reality TV that one can take. Now that they've realised that rupture is interesting I hope that they realise that too much of anything can make it banal. I'm hoping that they'll realise this in the end and put something else on TV.

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