Robert Thompson Reality Quotations

Reality TV comes along and it proceeds to marry with every other type of program and have offspring. We've got reality TV married to a talent show ? 'Nashville Star' and 'American Idol.' And now I think the same is happening with home improvement shows.

So many of these reality shows sound so egregious on paper. The automatic response when you hear this is to think, 'Oh man, how low can we sink?' But it's all going to depend on how it's executed.

Reality has taken a major hit. But it's far from dead, and some form of this stuff is going to be on television for at least the next century, if not longer.

How television and the culture are absorbing Katrina is certainly different than how they absorbed Sept. 11. Four years ago, all culture was put on pause. But people have continued to watch comedies and dramas and reality shows throughout, even when things were at their grimmest.

No one would ever likely confuse reality TV with Masterpiece Theatre.