It seems that all anyone can talk about in Washington this week are the reality shows that are quickly invading the city and how excited/pissed off/ambivalent that makes them feel. Granted, frothy TV is a much more pleasant topic than the shooting at the Holocaust Museum or what the President is going to do with all the Guantanamo detainees, but it’s as if everything else has ceased to exist. At work last night in Dupont, my co-worker and I spent ten minutes discussing the minutiae of The Real World DC with two customers. MTV has been canvassing neighborhood businesses with waivers allowing them to film there and now the speculation as to where these new neighbors will hang out has begun in full force. With at least two more reality shows based in the city are in the works, Washington is quickly taking over basic cable. But when will we actually see the results?
When The CW announced the development of Blonde Charity Mafia last April, it elicited a very small response. After all, it’s basically The Hills plus business suits. Up until last week, it was supposed to premiere in July but the network decided to push it back to the fall. Why? According to Post TV columnist Lisa de Moraes, it’s too good. Or at least the heads of The CW seem to think so. Now relabeled as a mid-season replacement, it will begin airing sometime after the middle of September.
Other DC shows are also stalling. Even though the cast is rumored to be moving in next Saturday, MTV still has to air The Real World Cancun in it’s entirety before we’ll catch a glimpse of the Washington group on TV. And when Bravo announced that The Real Housewives were coming to the nation’s capital, executives made it clear that we wouldn’t see the show until sometime in 2010. Other shows focused on the Hill and on the city’s most powerful women are supposedly in the works as well, but with no network pickup, they might not see the light of day.
And so we wait. Will it be exciting to see our fair city on the boob tube? Probably. But are reality shows going to remain the only topic of conversation until the shows stop airing? Please let that not be the case. With all the troublemakers we have, the last thing DC needs is its own Speidi.