Reality runs rampant

Reality is on a roll. Nearly 30 shows using unscripted scenarios and amateur performers will be on the air this fall. Some are reprises from last season ("Temptation Island 2" "Survivor 3: Africa," "The Mole II") and some are new, boasting edgy concepts. "The Runner" (coming midseason on ABC) engages the TV audience in helping to track down a "fugitive," while "Murder in Small Town X" (already airing on Fox) asks its 10 contestants to find a fictional serial killer.

But while programmers are delighted to wake up their summer schedules with these relatively cheap programs - not to mention get attention for their sheer outrageousness (think rats nibbling on contestants in "Fear Factor") - long term these shows may be important for two reasons: the way they're changing television's ability to tell a story and what they say about the evolving tastes of audiences.

"What's new," says Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, "is you have contrived parameters, and you bring [in] people from the body of the population, of which we are all part, without this heady air of stardom...."

These new unscripted shows have been compared to the circus or gladiatorial contests, but Mr. Thompson notes those traditional formats had carefully scripted rules for performers. This new genre, even with all its potential for degrading excesses, introduces a new freedom to invent. "It's like a giant jazz riff," he says.

When the reality-TV fad shakes out, he suggests, it will leave an ongoing legacy. "Jazz music is the best comparison because it has all these parameters with all this improvisation."

The unscripted format is broad enough to encompass elements of sports shows, game shows, and improvisational acting. "But it's all put into a relatively old-fashioned storytelling structure, and that's one of the reasons it's exploding," Thompson adds.

"It's almost like instead of writing 'Moby Dick,' Melville went and got a ship and populated it with real people and headed out to sea and sat there to wait and see what would happen. [Reality TV] has roots in other genres, but it leaves so much to serendipity. Watchers of the history of Western storytelling have got to be excited because Aristotle didn't identify this. It is really something different."

The ability to explore new forms is also an attraction for the behind-the-scenes talent. "Part of the excitement and part of the nerve-wracking [element] of producing reality television is you cannot predict," says Chris Cowan, executive producer of "Temptation Island 2." "That's actually the great allure, for me, of reality television, because [the participants are] real people. You cannot stay a step ahead of them, and you cannot anticipate what their reactions are going to be."

Network executives aiming to attract the coveted 18- to 35-year-old audience suggest that the MTV generation and their immersion in the "now" is helping redefine viewers' expectations.

"A younger audience, the under-35 audience, wants other material," says Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Entertainment. "They've grown up on MTV and ESPN, the 'X-Games' rather than the Olympics."

To them, "O.J. Simpson and Monica Lewinsky is entertainment, and [young people all have] video cameras in their [own] hands," Mr. Zucker says. "That's what they're responding to."

Even this season's new scripted shows will routinely include "live"-looking video clips along with the usual filmed material. In the pilot episode of NBC's new scripted drama "UC: Undercover," about a crack team of 20-something undercover agents trying to break difficult cases, a breathless chase scene shifts seamlessly between video and film. It looks like a collection of outtakes from the 5 o'clock news combined with a conventional scripted show.

The pressure on broadcast networks to attract audiences increasingly drifting to satellite, cable, and video programming is driving them to try new approaches. CBS has long had a reputation for appealing to older viewers. Yet, now it has been accused of pushing reality TV too far.

In this summer's "Big Brother 2," a male contestant put a knife to the throat of a female contestant and was banished from the show.

"We're all experimenting with programming and techniques," says Nancy Tellem, president of CBS entertainment.

A show such as "24," a new scripted drama that will unfold in real time over a 24-hour period, reflects the sort of urgency and demand for a heightened sense of realism in dramas that comes directly from the reality shows.

"It's not so much the age as it is sophistication of the viewer," CBS's Ms. Tellem adds.

"What happens," says actor Ben Affleck, coproducer of "The Runner," "is as the audiences get more sophisticated, and because you're watching real live people interacting in the real world right next to dramas, the audience develops a more finely tuned eye for realism."

An unintended impact of bringing more reality shows onto the air is a winnowing down of conventionally scripted dramas and comedies that must compete for fewer time slots. The quality of what survives inevitably goes up.

Says Mr. Affleck: "The bar has been raised all the way across for dramas and comedies."