THE FUSE

We have gotten pretty used to seeing bad behavior on our screens. There is the scripted Breaking Bad and the less scripted “reality TV.” While there has been reality TV since the late 1940s (Candid Camera), the volume of these shows ballooned in the 2000s, now with competition, nastiness, and backbiting. Spoiler alert—they do not represent reality. There are multiple books written by producers of these shows, including one called Creating Reality: An Insider's Guide to Working in Reality TV (Tartaglia, 2020). That title speaks volumes.