Thirteen summers ago, when a pair of shows called Survivor and Big Brother debuted on CBS, there were uneasy cries that reality TV was going to coarsen our civilization. Contestants were encouraged to lie and backstab one another! People were eating actual rats! Won't someone think of the children?
You can debate how well, by 2013, reality TV has fulfilled its potential as a hell-bound handbasket. But I do know this: when the regular TV season ended in May and the summer-premiere season started, it was an exciting time at home, because it meant MasterChef was coming back, and my wife and I could watch it together with the kids. Pioneer families had the evening taffy pull; we watch people caramelizing sugar on Fox.
Reality TV is a big, diverse medium, of course. Some of it is raunchy, some obnoxious (like the despicable let's-fire-someone fest Does Someone Have to Go?, also on Fox), and some very, very good. In other words, it's not unlike scripted TV.
But an unexpected thing has happened over the past generation: reality TV has become the new version, and perhaps the last bastion, of prime-time family viewing.
It's not just MasterChef for us: excepting old reruns, nearly every TV series my kids and I watch together is a reality show. We handicap The Voice contestants' odds every week. The Amazing Race has given us a new perspective on navigating through airports on vacations. Shark Tank (on which people pitch for funding for their fledgling companies) captivates the kids and has shown me--one of the least entrepreneurial-minded people I know--what a fascinating process conceiving and valuing a business is. Chopped, Market Warriors, Top Chef--if it involves cooking something or selling something or cooking something to sell it, we'll watch it.
Before you call Child Protective Services on me, let me explain. People sometimes assume that because I'm a TV critic, I'm permissive about what my kids (who are 8 and 11) watch. It's really the opposite, maybe because I'm professionally exposed to what's out there. And plenty of their classmates' parents have found safe harbor in reality's Kardashian-and-Snooki-free sectors. About a decade ago, the decency-policing Parents Television Council condemned reality shows that "revel in [participants'] eagerness to publicly parade their lack of moral integrity." Today, its recommended-viewing lists include Cupcake Wars and Undercover Boss.
When people complain that there are fewer good shows than there used to be for families to watch together, it's often assumed this means that TV has become more vulgar or adult. Which is true in some ways, but really the overall trend is that TV has become more specific. Everyone has a demographically targeted TV, toddlers and adults alike.
We actually live in a pretty great era for kids' TV, and prime time is rich with sophisticated dramas like Mad Men that could exist only at a time of greater creative license. But most adults have limited tolerance for kids' programs (show me the American parent not traumatized by the phrase Swiper, no swiping!), and it will be years before I show my kids more than the title sequence for Game of Thrones. (Which they love.)