Popular Reality TV

Canada is getting its own version of The Bachelor, which has started casting and will air on Citytv. Our long-suffering neighbors to the north, who frequently have to watch our reality TV shows but cannot apply to them, have actually sent us a number of cast members for The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, including Jillian Harris. But now they get their own version, so more Canadians will know what it’s like to date on television and break up after they’ve bled it for all the publicity they can. The nine-episode series will debut in the fall, according to a press release , which says the “nine-episode, Canadian, romantic reality series is in the pre-production phase with principal photography slated to begin this spring,” and it will be produced by Force Four Entertainment. Chris Harrison appeared on Breakfast Television today to announce the new series, and said “the good news is, it won’t take our show [the ABC version] away. It’s a double-dose, it’s all good, it’s a win-win for Ca...

Canada’s knock-off of Jersey Shore hasn’t even been filmed, but Lake Shore has been cast and released a preview, and it alone is both fascinating and weird. Besides the unintentional comedy that comes from Jersey Shore -style characters speaking with Canadian accents, it’s straightforward in its stereotyping, labeling its cast members by their ethnicity. Candian of the Week dissects the preview , noting that Lake Shore “looks like an absolute train wreck” because it “aims to ratchet up the tension by deliberately casting a multicultural octet of fist-pumpers and hard-partiers.” Even a blog that celebrates Canadians is forced to concede that “maybe even Canada doesn’t always get it right.” As the show’s official site points out, they are doing something the MTV series does not by making their cast more diverse. The site asks, “What happens when eight vibrant and volatile twenty-something Torontonians from different backgrounds and sexual orientations shack up?” The answer to that q...