Slate has an interesting article on the first contestants to be kicked off reality tv shows, and how to avoid being one of them. It features such memorable first boots like Sonja (Survivor 1, too nice) and Nimma (Top Chef 4, too sad sack). Read the article, if it interests you.
Unlike most reality TV, the eliminations in 6-time Emmy Award winning The Amazing Race are not based on votes but on quantifiable merit (i.e., being the last to reach Point B), so the article probably does not apply to it. For me though, the most thankful first elimination occurred in woeful The Amazing Race: Family Edition. To recollect, this was the edition that featured entire family units, and not just pairs, as teams, and among the teams was a seemingly normal young nuclear family, the Black family, with mom and dad and two young children. The Black family also happened to be African-American, the only ones in the race. This could have ensued in a season of really awkward gaffes from the other teams. "The Blacks are gaining on us." "Please don't help the Blacks." "The Blacks cheated, the Blacks cheated, damn those Blacks!" Nonetheless, the Blacks were eliminated in the first leg, saving America from a further widening of its racial divide.
I will never ever appear on a reality tv show, period, for oh so many reasons. But I did dream once that I was a contestant on Survivor. The details of that dream are extremely hazy, so I couldn't be able to tell you a thing I did on that imaginary island. I do remember though the stomach-churning panic I felt during the first elimination vote and on the succeeding votes, mostly as looming assaults on my self-esteem of which I care less during my sentient hours. In the end, I placed fifth, a creditable finish which I took pride in -- by that point I was sufficiently disengaged not to care enough towin.
Unlike most reality TV, the eliminations in 6-time Emmy Award winning The Amazing Race are not based on votes but on quantifiable merit (i.e., being the last to reach Point B), so the article probably does not apply to it. For me though, the most thankful first elimination occurred in woeful The Amazing Race: Family Edition. To recollect, this was the edition that featured entire family units, and not just pairs, as teams, and among the teams was a seemingly normal young nuclear family, the Black family, with mom and dad and two young children. The Black family also happened to be African-American, the only ones in the race. This could have ensued in a season of really awkward gaffes from the other teams. "The Blacks are gaining on us." "Please don't help the Blacks." "The Blacks cheated, the Blacks cheated, damn those Blacks!" Nonetheless, the Blacks were eliminated in the first leg, saving America from a further widening of its racial divide.
I will never ever appear on a reality tv show, period, for oh so many reasons. But I did dream once that I was a contestant on Survivor. The details of that dream are extremely hazy, so I couldn't be able to tell you a thing I did on that imaginary island. I do remember though the stomach-churning panic I felt during the first elimination vote and on the succeeding votes, mostly as looming assaults on my self-esteem of which I care less during my sentient hours. In the end, I placed fifth, a creditable finish which I took pride in -- by that point I was sufficiently disengaged not to care enough towin.
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