Popculture Vulture
By ELIZABETH TAI
Originally published in The Star on May 6, 2011.

We need a revolution in TV land! So that we aren’t left with painful cliffhangers after we’ve invested our time and emotions in a show.

IT is June, and the American TV schedule is littered with corpses: the family of superheroes in No Ordinary Family will no longer wield their amazing powers, we’ll never find out what the “visitors” plan next for humanity in V, nor will we know just what The Event will be.

A pity, really. I liked No Ordinary Family’s quirky charm and V improved in its second season – though the cheap special effects never did it any favours. The Event had an intriguing, if feet-dragging plot, though I had long worried for its longevity, seeing how its ratings floundered from the beginning.

I’ve learned over the years not to get too invested in American TV shows. I’d try to choose winners but can’t help be drawn in by excellent, unique shows that often end up cancelled – Firefly, Dollhouse and Rome, to name a few. Shows that succeed ratings-wise – and they aren’t always excellent shows per se – are renewed and tend to go on for many seasons, ratings willing. But that’s not necessarily a good thing. Unless they have some very good writers, some end up going on for so long that the characters and plot become stale, and whatever joy to be had is sucked out. Some stories just need to die at their appointed time. (Someone put House out of his misery, please.)

Good storytelling isn’t always rewarded in TV land, especially in the United States. Those that dare to be more adventurous don’t always survive, as the majority of viewers either aren’t receptive to complex, multi-episode storylines or take a while to warm up to them. (The exception is, of course, Lost, but that was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.) Critically well-received sci-fi drama Fringe was on the verge of cancellation this year and cult-favourite dramedy Chuck barely survived to go on to its fifth, and most probably last, season next year.

Apart from the sadness of not getting to watch your favourite show, the problem is that TV series often end in cliffhangers to entice viewers to return the next season. And since producers are usually not given enough notice of the cancellation to wrap up the stories lines, many cancelled shows end up with no endings, leaving the viewers terminally frustrated.

Well, this avid TV viewer is tired of this state of affairs. I’m fed up with shows that have no endings, I’m annoyed that shows with good storylines are given the shaft, and I’m no longer eager to invest my time in a TV show only to have it cancelled without proper resolution. What a waste of a story, and how futile the efforts of the production team. I demand a TV revolution!

At times like these I can’t help but think of how TV shows are produced outside the United States; for instance, in South Korea, home of the Hallyu Wave.

There, TV dramas are rarely cancelled because they are given a definite number of episodes to complete their run. If the show has good ratings, it will be extended by a few episodes. As a result, viewers get stories with proper endings – and are inclined to buy the box sets. And I have to say that it’s rather satisfying and stress-free to sit through a short 16-episode drama as opposed to five seasons with 22 episodes each season.

However, this system has created problems of its own. In chasing after good ratings, many producers opt to “live shoot” the shows. Meaning, dramas are produced in “real time” – the episode is often aired the same week it was made. This is so that producers can tweak the show’s storyline if ever the ratings begin to waver.

This often results in the production team having to rush to complete the episode in a very short time. Actors often bear the brunt of the gruelling schedule, some collapsing on set out of sheer exhaustion.

In 2009, actor Kim Bum fainted on the set of his drama Dream. South Korean superstar Bae Yong-joon (who starred in hit soap Winter Sonata) was hospitalised for early stage of sepsis the same year.

According to the Korea Times, “his immunity (sic) system has weakened due to stress and over work”. “I filmed all through the night until 6 o’clock this morning, and went home only to shower. We’ll have to pull all-night shoots tonight and tomorrow, too, to make the broadcast tomorrow,” said actress Yeom Jung-ah (at dramabeans.com) of the 16-episode drama Royal Family, which aired a few months ago in South Korea.

In the most extreme example of the live shoot system, the forensic drama Signs shot its last episode on the day of its broadcast. The result was a rushed product full of audio glitches and choppy editing, which annoyed viewers.

Changing the storyline to whet the audience’s appetites often results in continuity problems in the storytelling and unexplainable character transformations, though sometimes the tweaks do seem to improve ratings somewhat.

Flawed system it may be, but if South Korea can air complete dramas, I really cannot see why Hollywood can’t do the same. Even its cousin across the pond, Britain, air dramas with proper endings. Shouldn’t Hollywood attempt to fix the system and allow TV shows to do what they’re meant to do – tell a story? And as far as I know, stories have a beginning, a middle and an ending.

Elizabeth Tai is taking a break from Western dramas to sample the sweet and (usually) short relief of South Korean and Chinese dramas.

Imperfect hero: Meng Xing Hun (played by Baron Chen) from China CCTV’s Meteor, Butterfly, Sword (2010) may be a cold-blooded assassin, but like all wuxia heroes, he lives by a code of conduct that is defined by loyalty and honour.

Popculture Vulture
By ELIZABETH TAI
Originally published in The Star on May 15, 2011.

It may be flawed but the wuxia genre still packs a punch.

FOR the past two months, I lived the life of an addict. I would be awake until the wee hours of the morning, my eyes red from feeding my habit. My mind would often plot to get my next “fix”, and I’ve spent an unseemly amount of money on my addiction.

My “crack” of choice: wuxia TV series.

If you’ve seen the movies Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) or House Of Flying Daggers (2004), you’ll have an idea about the genre. These dramas, usually set in ancient China, revolve around martial arts heroes (called xia) who live by a chivalrous code of conduct. Because these heroes have cultivated great “internal strength”, they are capable of impossible feats such as jumping or flying great distances, freezing people with a touch, and surviving falls off cliffs (an amusingly common occurrence in wuxia dramas).

I was a young girl when I first got hooked. Back then, I lived in Johor Baru and we received TV transmissions from Singapore which aired lots of wuxia dramas in Mandarin. I would often sneak downstairs, breaking my family’s “no television after 9pm” rule, to watch sword-wielding heroes flying around tree tops.

I was fascinated by the intricate stories, the strong, feisty heroines, the heroes’ strict adherence to honour, loyalty and filial piety. Plus, the men looked really dashing in flowing robes and long hair!

Then, when I was 13, my family moved to Kuala Lumpur. Not many wuxia series were aired or sold in Malaysia then, and those available were in Cantonese (without English subtitles), a dialect that till this day sounds as alien to me as Russian. So, over the years I lost touch with the genre, enjoying it only in spurts when a rare wuxia movie graced our cinemas.

But a few months ago, I stumbled on a few wuxia TV series in Mandarin, and the floodgates reopened with a vengeance.

I devoured as many titles as I could find, often watching them without English subtitles with my half-baked Mandarin. (I am now ever so grateful that my parents made me take Mandarin classes in primary school, even if I was a terribly inattentive student.)

Watching wuxia dramas when your grasp of the language is shaky is almost foolhardy as the Mandarin spoken is formal – akin to Shakespearean English, if you may. For example, there are many ways you can say “I”, and how you address yourself will give clues to your status, job and even mood – fascinating! But it certainly gave me a headache as I often had to watch the telly with my Chinese-English dictionary next to me.

After a decades-long abstinence, I was amazed by how much wuxia TV series have improved in quality, and how China is now making the best wuxia dramas. (In the 1980s and 1990s, Hong Kong ruled the genre.)

While Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou sparked global interest in wuxia with their films Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero (2002) respectively, my theory is that wuxia TV series got a boost when China director Zhang Jichong started adapting wuxia writer Louis Cha’s works. He began with The Smiling, Proud Wanderer (sometimes called State Of Divinity or The Swordsman) in 2001 and then The Legend Of The Condor Heroes (2003), Demi-Gods And Semi-Devils (2003), Return Of The Condor Heroes (2006) and Heavenly Sword And Dragon Sabre (2009).

Although not all viewers were happy with his interpretation of Cha’s writings, he certainly set the standard for all wuxia dramas with his big-budgeted, high-quality productions. The costumes were detailed and faithful to the era, the martial arts choreography is down-to-earth and realistic (to a point, this is wuxia after all) and he made full use of China’s treasures – its mountains, forests, lakes, and ancient buildings and monuments. And when these weren’t sufficient, he would build large “film cities”, such as the 110mil yuan (about RM50mil) city with Song, Western Xia or Liao buildings in Dali, Yunnan, for the filming of Demi-Gods And Semi-Devils (source: bit.ly/iZoece). The film city is now a tourist attraction.

Zhang Jichong’s remake of Return Of The Condor Heroes has lavish scenery and sets, and launched China heartthrob Huang Xiaoming’s career. Huang plays the hero Yang Guo opposite Crystal Liu Yi Fei as his teacher and lover Xiao Long Nu.
After being spoiled by such devotion to authenticity, it’s a challenge to watch older Hong Kong wuxia series, where studio sets were heavily used and costume designers had a strange fondness for shiny fabrics and pastel-coloured outfits. (TVB’s latest wuxia offering, Relic Of An Emissary – currently showing on Astro on Demand (Channel 901), Monday to Friday, 8.30pm – has an interesting story, but its poor production quality is simply distracting.)

When done well, wuxia dramas are incredibly engrossing, addictive and beautiful to look at. When done badly, it can look painfully corny and may turn people off. Rare is a wuxia drama where “wire fu” isn’t overly used. Bad CGI reigns (2009’s Chinese Paladin III – ouch), and don’t get me started on some of the costumes (I have bad memories of 2006’s Da Ren Wu’s (Hero) spandex outfits).

Producers also seemed afraid of trying anything new. Because it is far more expensive to produce wuxia series, it is perhaps unsurprising that a popular story is remade over and over again.

Many wuxia series are based on the works of modern wuxia’s three greatest authors: Hong Kong’s Louis Cha (or Jin Yong), Taiwan’s Gu Long and China’s Liang Yusheng; Cha’s works have probably seen the most adaptations. There are 1976, 1983, 1988, 1994, 2003 and 2008 versions of Cha’s The Legend Of The Condor Heroes alone.

However, recently China producers have taken to producing wuxia with time-travel elements or that are based on video games, so things may be changing.

While the genre may be flawed, wuxia truly has a lot to offer viewers – it is a fantasy genre unique to Chinese culture, and it gives viewers special insights into Chinese values and mores. It’s too bad that wuxia series are so difficult to obtain, especially in the West. And if they are available, only a select few incorporate English subtitles.

Malaysians are lucky as we have access to them via TV channels or video stores. But still, a large number of these do not have English or Bahasa Malaysia subtitles. One wonders if it’s because there’s an assumption that the genre is so niche that only Chinese-speaking people will appreciate it. That can’t be further from the truth. One can see fans from around the world discussing wuxia TV series on Internet forums. So the potential for it being enjoyed by a global market is not to be underestimated.

I suppose until there’s a “wuxia wave” akin to that of South Korea’s Hallyu (Korean wave), its wonders will be limited to the Chinese-speaking world. What a pity!

Elizabeth Tai recommends ‘The Smiling, Proud Wanderer’ (also ‘Laughing In The Wind’) 2001, ‘Meteor, Butterfly, Sword’ 2010, ‘Relic Of An Emissary’ 2011 (if you can get past the tacky studio sets) and ‘All Men Are Brothers’ 2011, which is available in the stores with English subtitles.

Popculture Vulture
By ELIZABETH TAI
Originally published in The Star on April 10, 2011.

The difficulty of making fantasy shows is well-acknowledged but there’s hope  yet.

Major release: The upcoming Game Of Thrones, starring Sean Bean as honourable warrior Eddard Stark, looks expensive and impressive.

IT is a costly, risky affair to bring fantasy to the screen.

For one, it requires special effects – magic and mythical creatures are characteristic of the genre – and that usually translates into high production costs.

It doesn’t help that fantasy shows are often not well-received. Viewers used to more general fare often think that the genre is too “out there” for their tastes. And fewer viewers mean lower ratings and ticket sales, and consequently, a less attractive bottom line.

To compound matters, those who dared to take the risk often ended up producing cheesy films that further alienated viewers from the genre. Movies like Legend (1985), Dungeons And Dragons (2000) and Eragon (2006) as well as the Earthsea miniseries (2004) are some of the duds.

But Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings (LOTR) trilogy, released between 2001 and 2003, changed things. The Kiwi director proved to all that fantasy can be profitable, attract a wide audience, and better still, be respectable.

In the wake of LOTR, several fantasy movies and dramas were made with varying degrees of success: the Narnia series (it was a financial battle to get each film of the trilogy made), The Golden Compass (alas, stalled) and TV series Legend Of The Seeker (critically panned), to name a few.

It seems that Hollywood is still cautious, even if it is taking a chance on fantasy once more. This year, two big-budget fantasy TV series will air in the United States.

There’s the Irish-Canadian production Camelot, a retelling of the Arthurian tale (currently airing on AXN Beyond on Astro Channel 720), which has a budget of over 20mil Euros (about RM86mil). Then there’s HBO’s Game Of Thrones, based on author George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series. Fans have been salivating over its high-powered cast headed by Sean Bean (aka Boromir from LOTR). Recently released pictures and trailers indicate a lavish production.

The reason why LOTR did well was because it respected the source material – the brainchild of English writer J.R.R. Tolkien – and the genre.

By emphasising the story’s complicated human relationships, LOTR became a tale everyone could relate to. The magic, monsters and mayhem is just the icing on the cake. And judging from trailers and previews, Camelot and Game Of Thrones have these favourable traits.

But why stop there? Here’s my dream list of fantasy novels that should be transferred onto the big or small screen:

Earthsea fantasy novels by Ursula K. Le Guin

The TV miniseries based on Le Guin’s classic and much-beloved fantasy novels about a boy’s journey to becoming one of the greatest wizards ever lived was such a travesty of an adaptation that even Le Guin spoke up against it in an article on Slate.com: “All they intended was to use the name Earthsea, and some of the scenes from the books, in a generic McMagic movie with a meaningless plot based on sex and violence.”

These novels deserve another go at celluloid, if only to erase the mistake that was Earthsea.

The Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb

FitzChivalry is the bastard son of royalty, but he is made into a trained assassin so that he could execute the King’s will in the shadows. There are no elves or trolls in this series, although there is a kind of magic here. Instead, the focus is on the political manoeuvrings in the Six Duchies, mostly executed by the characters in this novel. Think of this as The Bourne Identity with magic.

Pern novels by Anne McCaffrey

I will take my hat off to anyone who dares to adapt McCaffrey’s novels, as they would probably blow the budget on the number of dragons they’d have to create via CGI. Here, human beings have created a symbiotic relationship with dragon-like creatures, native to a planet called Pern. These dragons form a telepathic bond with their human riders, and are a main line of defence against the deadly meteor showers that plague Pern. However, due to their scarcity and importance, wars and alliances have been forged, rendering McCaffrey’s novels a rich source material for a multi-season television series.

Darkover series by Marion Zimmer Bradley

The Darkover novels are not fantasy per se, but science fiction with elements of fantasy. Darkover is a planet populated by the descendants of a space vessel from Earth. After some genetic tinkering, a subspecies of people with amazing psychic powers are created. They – the red-haired Comyn – are the aristocrats of Darkover, and because of their much-needed abilities, Darkover society has a complicated pecking order and social mores. When their cousins from Earth finally find them, the Darkover natives form an uneasy alliance with the Terrans, who are hungry to discover more about the secretive Comyn.

Bradley is a genius when it comes to creating fascinating characters, none of whom are entirely on the side of good or evil, and some have to do very bad things for the greater good. The political shenanigans that go on in the Darkover novels (which number over a few dozen) are just dying to be played out on screen.

Elizabeth Tai wishes to live in a world where there are more fantasy dramas than cop shows.

Popculture Vulture
By ELIZABETH TAI
Orginally published in The Star on May 23, 2010.

So what went wrong with the series that started out heroically with tremendous buzz and promise?

Peter (Milo Ventimiglia, left) and Sylar (Zachary Quinto) tried to break down the wall of viewer indifference. Alas, it didn’t work.

SO, NBC has cancelled Heroes. Alas, Heroes. I barely knew ye.

No, actually, I knew you too much. Unlike some of the millions who abandoned its creaky decks in its second season and in greater numbers in the third season, I actually stayed on to watch.

I took in every ridiculous plot, wince-inducing dialogue (“Save the cheerleader, save the world”) and every character assassination, with my fists clenched at my side and my face twisted in despair.

What has become of my beloved show? The same show which prompted my bunch of Heroes-worshipping friends to organise a “wrap-up party” to watch the first season finale, cheering Peter on as he faced Sylar? But I still watched the train wreck, and kept hoping that it’d return to its glory days.

Well, no such luck now.

When it debuted in 2006 on the American network NBC, it attracted 14 million viewers. In its final season – its fourth – only five million tuned in. What’s more tragic, news of its cancellation was greeted mostly with sighs of relief. Tragic, for a show that started so well.

Just what did Heroes do wrong?

They never killed Sylar
Look, I get it. Sylar was awesome. Zachary Quinto made him mysterious, evil yet vulnerable at the same time. We’ll miss him if he’s gone, but because Season One was about putting an end to the menace that was Sylar, fans deserved that closure at least. But no, they decided to let Sylar live and drag on the Heroes vs Sylar thing. By the fourth season, the fearsome slicer had become a joke. And turning Sylar into a joke is a crime of monumental proportions.

They neutered Peter
In the third season, Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) lost his powers only to regain them in a more limited form. Instead of being able to absorb powers at will, he had to touch a person to get them now.

One of the coolest things about Peter initially was that he’d felt that his life was without direction (i.e. he felt like a loser). But then his amazing powers manifested, and he had to struggle to use those abilities responsibly.

Remember that amazing Season One episode, Five Years Gone, where we saw Peter at his prime, facing Sylar as an equal in terms of powers? Peter was the only one who could face Sylar. With his powers reduced, there just wasn’t a balance anymore.

They made Hiro a joke that ran too long
Hiro (Masi Oka) was just kawaii (cute), but at one point or another, he must grow up. But by the fourth season, he was still indulging in his kiddy superhero fantasies by building a detective agency where he rescued people with his super powers. Been there, done that. And it wasn’t funny anymore.

They stopped grounding the heroes in reality
The lovely thing about Heroes’ first season is that the super-powered people were just regular folks from all walks of life trying to survive the rigours of modern life. Albeit with a little help from super powers.

But in its following seasons, we had government conspiracies, secret formulas, mutant detention centres, shady experiments and family members with Godfather-like ambitions. I kinda prefer to watch more about Peter being a nurse and trying to be a normal dude.

They forgot that the show was about the characters, not just the plot
And because they were so busy making the heroes run around saving the world, they forgot – or perhaps, didn’t bother – to develop the characters. They did a good enough job with Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) who had to wrestle with his desire for power and his need to do good, but almost all the other characters (and there were just too many of them) were mere pawns on the crowded chess board.

They made characters do things that they wouldn’t have done
In Season Three, Heroes just went nuts. Nathan started rounding up fellow super-powered folks, and Mohinder became a mutant with superstrength and a bad skin condition. We just didn’t know those people anymore. It didn’t help that the plot was just simply ridiculous.

Since its third season, fingers were pointed at show creator Tim Kring for the series’ amazing decline. But Kring – once beloved by fans – laid the blame on fans for not watching the show live on the night it aired, and disastrously, called those who did “saps and dips***s”. (Lesson to all show creators: Don’t ever, ever, insult your target market.)

Then, in an interview with IGN.com, Kring said that network interference and the inability to delete characters were at fault.

I suppose we don’t really care now, because Heroes is done no matter whose fault it is. Still, Kring should do himself a favour and just exit quietly without making another comment that will infuriate former fans. Especially if he wants to create another show … because people have long memories after all.

RIP Heroes: 2006-2010.

Elizabeth Tai concedes that ‘Heroes’ Season Four was a major improvement, but it happened too late.

Popculture Vulture
By ELIZABETH TAI
Originally published in The Star on April 18, 2010.

What made South Korean celebrities suicidal?

THEY seem to have everything: fame, beauty, wealth, and adoration. So why are so many South Korean celebrities killing themselves?

Actor Choi Jin-young, 39, joined the lamentable statistics on March 29 when he hung himself in his home.

What made his death particularly tragic was that his sister, veteran actress Choi Jin-sil, had taken her own life less than two years ago. She was 40 when she died on Oct 2, 2008.

Actress Choi Jin-Sil was battling depression when the vicious Internet rumours began. She killed herself in 2008.

Jin-sil, dubbed the “nation’s actress”, killed herself a month after 36-year-old actor Ahn Jae-hwan, her close friend, gassed himself in his car.

Online allegations that she caused Ahn’s death by pressuring her debt-ridden friend to repay her her money were said to have been unbearable for the actress. She was apparently struggling with depression at that time.

A police probe later found the rumours to be unfounded.

Although there have been suicides among South Korean celebrities, an alarming number of them closely followed suit after Jin-sil’s death.

Transgender entertainer Jang Chae-won, 26, died a day after Jin-sil’s demise. Quickly following that were the suicides of actor-model Kim Ji-hoo, 23, on Oct 6; singer Lee Seo-hyun, 30, on Dec 1; actor Kim Suk-gyun, 30, on Jan 17, 2009; and model Daul Kim, 20, on Nov 19, 2009.

More distressingly, high-profile suicides like Jin-sil’s and Ahn’s have triggered a wave of “copycat” acts in their country. According to state-run agency Statistics Korea, suicides increased by 60% after Jin-sil’s passing.

Barely two years later, Jin-young too took his own life. – AP
Just what is driving these glitterati to their deaths? Is it nasty netizens, like some believe?

Yuni, a popular singer in South Korea, felt the sting of vicious netizens when talk of her having had cosmetic surgery spread online. The 26-year-old hung herself in 2007. China Daily reported that she was, at that time, depressed over her career.

Did the rumours push her over the edge?

Jang Chae-won and Kim Ji-hoo endured cyber gossip about their sexuality. Ji-hoo, before his suicide, admitted he was homosexual on a show called Coming Out.

South Korea, the world’s most wired nation, has vibrant Internet portals and chat rooms where freedom of speech is given free reign. But it also has a dark side: rumours and cyber bullying are rife.

Jin-sil’s death prompted the authorities to consider tougher measures against Internet slander.

But a more controversial and salacious reason emerged when Jang Ja-yeon, star of the popular TV drama Boys over Flowers, killed herself on March 7 last year.

Ja-yeon left a seven-page suicide note which claimed that her agent had forced her to have sex with directors, media executives and CEOs in order to succeed in the cut-throat entertainment industry.

Unscrupulous agents aside, South Korean entertainers are kept on a tight leash by their handlers, and their fans have equally exacting and sometimes unreasonable demands.

Lee Da-hae, star of this year’s hit drama Slave Hunters, was criticised heavily by netizens for looking too pretty on the TV show!

Caught between the two forces, is it any wonder that some celebrities cracked?

It doesn’t help that while South Korea is a technologically advanced nation, many of its values remain deeply conservative.

And contrary to popular belief, celebrities don’t always live happy and glamorous lives. The reality, as actress Park Jin-hee pointed out, is less than cheery.

Jang Ja-yeon, who died in March last year, succumbed to the pressure of the industry.
Park interviewed 260 actors last year for her paper, Studies on Depression and Suicidal Urges among Actors, for her Master’s at Yonsei University. She discovered that four out of 10 of them were suffering from depression, and two out of 10 had actually bought “devices” for suicide like toxic substances.

According to the newspaper Korea Times, her study also revealed that actors were often forced to hide their real feelings and personalities to remain “likeable”. The vagaries of showbiz and the caprice of fans combine to makes things worse for them.

But perhaps celebrity suicides are just a more prominent manifestation of South Korea’s rising suicide rates, which are among the world’s highest; a 2008 Statistics Korea study noted that it’s the fourth most common cause of death in the country.

Just last May 23, its ex-president Roh Moo-hyun stunned the world when he jumped from a cliff near his home in Bongha village. The 62-year-old former statesman was then facing intense questioning over allegations of corruption.

South Koreans, be it normal folk or “privileged” celebrities, live in a pressure cooker society where conservative values still hold sway, where “saving face” and toeing the line is vital, and where its people are driven to succeed first in school and later in work.

Failure, it seems, is so unacceptable that suicide, tragically, becomes a way out for many – even celebrities.

■ Elizabeth Tai enjoys Korean dramas, but the experience is tinged with sadness knowing how hard the stars have to labour to attain and maintain their status.

Those shows that people watch with train-wreck interest have remarkably taken an altruistic turn.

I JUST don’t have the constitution for reality TV shows. I don’t know how you guys do it, but watching them turns me into a ball of nerves.

Seeing those singers on American Idol stand in line waiting for the vote that will squash their musical dreams? Stressful!

Jamie Oliver sets up a community kitchen in Huntington, West Virginia, where he teaches families and kids how to prepare healthy meals.

And surely there’s something better for the nerves than Amazing Race, where jet-lagged contestants race from one continent to another, sniping at each other while they’re at it. I feel jet-lagged just watching them.

How about a show about a bevy of women trying to win a bachelor’s heart by saying what he wants to hear? Yuck. Watching Type-A personalities win Donald Trump’s favour by outscheming each other? Hey, the last thing I want to do after leaving the office is to witness more backstabbing and office politics.

Okay, I’m a marshmallow. Looking at people’s dreams being dashed on TV reduces me to tears, and nasty people on TV, like the ones in real life, make me ill. Why are reality shows entertaining, again?

For the sake of my mental health, I’ve resolved to steer clear of any reality TV show.

But all that changed after a working trip to the United States last year. There I was in my hotel room, bleary-eyed from reading notes for the next day’s interview, when a show called Extreme Makeover: Home Edition came on.

I scowled and reached for the remote control, but not before the host Ty Pennington came on to explain the week’s episode: a poor family is in need, so the crew and a bunch of volunteers are going to build them a house for free.

That caught my attention. Going against my reality show-hating instincts, I continued watching.

Forty minutes later, I sniffed happily when the tearful family, overjoyed and overwhelmed, finally saw their new, beautifully decorated home.
Could this be …. a reality show that I can stomach? And, remarkably, one that highlights the good that human beings can do for one another?

Apparently, while I was stoically looking the other way, Hollywood realised that shows promoting good deeds that change people’s lives can not just be entertaining, but be a ratings magnet as well.

The new series Undercover Boss (trailer: bit.ly/agIWol) is a case in point. The reality show, which premiered in the United States on March 9, shows CEOs going “undercover” as a low-wage worker in their own firm.

Apparently, seeing high-powered suit types swabbing toilets, serving tables and scooping horse manure gives viewers a visceral thrill, and leaves them feeling vindicated as the CEOs come to realise how tough it is to be the little man.

At the end of the show, the CEO gets to reveal his identity to the people he’s worked with and makes company policy changes that affect their lives in a positive way.

Unsurprisingly, Undercover has become a ratings hit for US network CBS. In these economically challenged times, many assume that CEOs have lost touch with the common man – many are moved to see some CEOs who care enough to experience what it’s like to be in their shoes.
Meanwhile, British celebrity chef/author/presenter Jamie Oliver crosses the Atlantic to start Jamie’s Food Revolution (bit.ly/5MhxUe). The series tracks his efforts to transform the way America eats.

He has done this before in his homeland with Jamie’s School Dinners, the 2005 TV series that famously prompted British authorities to revamp school meals. But will America respond the same way?
His first stop is the country’s unhealthiest city: Huntington, West Virginia.

There, to Oliver’s horror, schoolchildren are served pizza for breakfast and chicken nuggets for lunch.

The Naked Chef tries to get the “lunch ladies” to prepare meals his way – using fresh ingredients – and to teach the folks at Huntington the healthier way to feed themselves. But not many liked being told they were wrong, so Huntington gave the Englishman a very hard time. A local radio deejay even told Oliver that they didn’t want to “sit around eating lettuce all day”. Poor Oliver was even reduced to tears, at one point!

Food Revolution, a ratings winner for US network ABC, has its heart at the right place. Eating healthily is necessary for all, and Oliver is the crusader of the cause. Too bad some of the folks he’s trying to save have no appetite for his good intentions.

Now, I wouldn’t call myself a reality TV series convert just yet, but I can say that if these shows ever do come to Malaysia, I’ll definitely park myself in front of the TV when they air. And I’ll do it without a scowl too.

> Elizabeth Tai also recommends ‘Dog Whisperer’, where dog trainer Cesar Millan teaches misbehaving canines proper manners.