Doomsday Castle

[RandyWayne]

OK, the whole premise of this show is absurd. It is a father and 5 (he has a total of 10) of his kids who are preppers and building a regular castle to hole up in when the end comes.

Once I got past the ridiculousness of his idea of preparing for societal collapse, I have actually found the show to be (mostly) a riot. The stuff he puts his kids through in order to "train" them is akin to Dwight Schrute preparing his Office co-workers to survive a fire by setting off the fire alarm after nailing all the doors shut in order to "prepare" them.

[n david]

Originally Posted by RandyWayne

OK, the whole premise of this show is absurd. It is a father and 5 (he has a total of 10) of his kids who are preppers and building a regular castle to hole up in when the end comes.

Once I got past the ridiculousness of his idea of preparing for societal collapse, I have actually found the show to be (mostly) a riot. The stuff he puts his kids through in order to "train" them is akin to Dwight Schrute preparing his Office co-workers to survive a fire by setting off the fire alarm after nailing all the doors shut in order to "prepare" them.

That was a great episode of "The Office!"

When/what channel is this on?

[RandyWayne]

It is on tonight, on NatGeo.

[Praxeas]

Do you guys really believe this stuff is "reality" and not scripted?

[n david]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

Do you guys really believe this stuff is "reality" and not scripted?

I imagine it is. Everything is scripted...especially reality shows. Even Duck Dynasty is scripted. You have to have some kind of script or plot. There's no way anyone's life would be interesting enough to put on tv without some kind of script.

The only time I was really surprised was when I found out HGTV's House Hunters was completely fake. I figured there was some kind of creative licensing going on...but was surprised that the show featured houses which were already sold and being lived in.

Some reality shows, like Duck Dynasty and Gene Simmons Family Jewels, are still entertaining, even if scripted.

[RandyWayne]

A better description would be that they are semi-scripted. They aren't actually memorizing dialogue but the producers of the show are, to one degree or another, nudging specific situations along. Hoovie is a great source of info on this.

A show like Doomsday Castle will have the dad (with help from the producers) draw up an outline for what he hopes to accomplish as far as prepping goes throughout several months, then they will attempt to film an episode based on each major paragraph of the outline. And they will film hundreds of hours of footage, catching every mistake and pratfall, which will then be put into the 45-48 minute episode.

Probably the LEAST scripted reality show you can watch is Survivor Man (or Survivor Man 10 days or the upcoming Survivor Man and Son).

[n david]

Originally Posted by RandyWayne

A better description would be that they are semi-scripted. They aren't actually memorizing dialogue but the producers of the show are, to one degree or another, nudging specific situations along. Hoovie is a great source of info on this.

Correct. I don't mean that they memorize lines...just that there is a certain plot and situations they have in mind with each episode.

[RandyWayne]

I never heard about House Hunters being faked, although it never surprises me to hear ANY show is. I always assumed the person or couple shopping looked at many more homes than the three shown, but once they picked one they simply showed THAT home along with two others when editing it down to an episode.

[n david]

Originally Posted by RandyWayne

I never heard about House Hunters being faked, although it never surprises me to hear ANY show is. I always assumed the person or couple shopping looked at many more homes than the three shown, but once they picked one they simply showed THAT home along with two others when editing it down to an episode.

Yah, they admitted it's "partially staged." I guess if I think about it, it almost has to be.

Some couple who was on the show spilled the beans. I guess they had already bought a home before HGTV agreed to feature them. And the homes they were touring were already sold and not even on the market...one was a friend's house.

[RandyWayne]

Here is the main guy behind Practical Preppers, the outfit that does the final scoring at the end of every person or group featured on Doomsday Preppers. He is talking a little bit about his experience on tonight's episode of Doomsday Castle.