It was nine years ago to the day that Survivor: Borneo debuted on CBS, ushering in a new era of reality TV as the dominant form of prime time network and cable programming. Remember Richard Hatch, the naked contestant known as "the snake"?
Since that first summer, critics like me have been wondering how far we as an audience would let the voyeuristic cameras go before we decided we'd had enough.
Obviously, we have yet to hit that wall. But it appears that without much notice, we have entered a new and darker realm of the genre in recent weeks - one that is making some viewers feel a little queasy.
I have been thinking a lot about where reality TV is headed since early May when NBC announced an airdate for Farrah's Story, Farrah Fawcett's video diary of her battle with cancer. Using Fawcett's own narration and images shot by her and friend Alana Stewart with Fawcett's video recorder, the special that aired May 15 felt so private and personal I wondered at times if I should be watching.
I had a variation of that same uneasy feeling Monday night while viewing the season premiere of the TLC series Jon and Kate Plus 8, a hit reality TV show about a suddenly unhappily married Pennsylvania couple and their eight kids.
Watching two angry parents barely able to share a couch as they spoke to the camera, I wondered if this year on Jon and Kate we would see a marriage implode before our eyes - and the eyes of their eight very young children. It certainly felt like that was the direction in which this couple was headed, and TLC executives last week told me they will go wherever the story of Jon and Kate Gosselin takes them in the next 39 episodes for which the family is under contract.
I have reported on and written about Fawcett for a long time. The first national trend story I did was on her famous poster in 1976.
Now after hearing her say that she is going to continue to chronicle her struggle, I wonder how far she is going to take it if she doesn't recover. Knowing what I know of her, I suspect she will take it all the way, and that it will be shown on television.
She is, after all, a creature of the medium. Ryan O'Neal, her partner, said the morning after Farrah's Story aired, the first thing she wanted to know was how it did in the ratings. (It did very well, with 9 million viewers.)
The return of Jon and Kate, even with all its painful talk about marital problems on Monday's opening episode, did even better in the ratings: 9.8 million viewers.
There are a host of big sociological issues connected with this new stage of reality TV.
"What about the kids in the Gosselin family, and all that video from the show?" Sheri Parks, an associate professor of popular culture at the University of Maryland, College Park asked last week in an interview with me.
"Kate, the mom, might be saying that this show is now her job, but it's not their job. They didn't sign up for this show. That video is going to be with them for all their lives - maybe including their parents' divorce. And they can't control what everybody in the country knows about their private lives. What's the impact of all that on them?"
We have been here before with the Loud family of California in the PBS documentary An American Family in 1973, which some date as the start of reality TV. (The alternative start date often cited is 1992, with the debut of MTV's Real World.)
But An American Family was filmed in 1971 by two great cinematographers, Susan and Alan Raymonds, and only presented after editing and scheduling two years later. It was not the run-and-gun, week-to-week pace of reality TV that leaves almost no time for editing or reflection.
The parents did break up in that 12-part film, but the children were much older. With the Gosselins, we have six children who are only 5 years old bearing witness to the marital carnage.
Since starting my blog in August, I have come to trust in the instincts and wisdom of many of its regular readers, and last week, I asked some of them whether they thought they were ready to witness someone dying and/or a marriage coming apart before their eyes on TV. Once again, the answers were illuminating - and they showed the folly of generalizing about audience tastes.
"I think Farrah should stop with the first documentary, anything beyond that might become too much to watch," says Sherry Tellitocci. "I think we can learn from the first documentary and she was very brave to film it."
Regarding Jon and Kate: "I felt depressed watching that episode this past Monday," Tellitocci says. "All it did was leave an empty feeling. I hope the episodes aren't all this depressing if they are going to continue."
Lucy Satterfield says she watched Farrah's Story twice and "cried" both times.
"To me it was one of the most genuine programs on TV lately. It was an inspiration to me. I really wished that we could stay more updated on her condition," Satterfield says.
"As for Jon and Kate Plus 8, this has been a big disappointment to me, I realize that they are just ordinary people just like the rest of us, but I really admired the fact that they seemed to be working together (despite their differences in personality) in having a happy family."
One of the most pointed analyses came from B.R. Stevens, who says, "Reality TV started off with The Real World and viewers peeking in on the lives of hot, young people doing hot, young things in hot, hip places. Now we have to watch marriages, and, worse, people die in order to get our kicks. It's shameful, really."
