The Bay Area (not just the Valley) is still in a state of shock over the announcement of Bravo's "Silicon Valley" reality show about the startup world. The reactions have turned into a form of theater, unto themselves.
I started out with great skepticism and eye-rolling about how a reality show tend be shaped by the editing process... which may have been the least impassioned reaction. Sarah Lacey expressed, to put it mildly, moral indignation. Executive Producer (it isn't clear that she'll be on-camera much) Randi Zuckerberg wrote a rebuttal. One of the features players, Hermione Way, wrote another rebuttal. This got pretty loud, pretty quick.
With the benefit of a few days to calm down, let's revisit the topic.
First off, given the current engineering culture of the Valley and the "everybody should learn to code" movement, that cast list does seems very light on engineers. I'm not saying there aren't any on the cast roster. I'm saying having less than half engineers seems to under-represent the profession. Dear lord, am I spouting "equal rights for engineers?" I'll just stop now.
Let's go back and take a loot at the original trailer: http://www.bravotv.com/blogs/the-dish/bravo-announces-new-shows-returning-series. Now, that "omigod, I want to be live real life Sex In The City" trailer for "Gallery Girls" leading off the trailer is not something I'd want framing a show that's supposed to be about business. "Silicon Valley" might be the least trashy segment on that, though I could have done without the now infamous quote about Silicon Valley being like high school. [Mind you, that quote might not sound nearly as annoying if we were privy to the next sentence or two. Was she comparing cliques between high school and the Valley? Was she talking about everybody knowing everyone else? There might be something to it. When I say editing determines a person's character, this is exhibit A.]
That trailer is what Bravo's highlighting, at any rate.
The thing is, Bravo isn't the one filming the show. The company producing and filming the show is called Den of Thieves. Never heard of them? You're not alone, I put out some feelers to the reality community in LA and they hadn't heard of them, either. That's because they don't appear to have done a lot of it. A lot of live shows, sure. But I'm only seeing two reality shows on their work page. "The T.O. Show" and "Peak Season."
Yes, "The T.O. Show" as in Terrell Owens, the ex-San Francisco 49 wide receiver with a history of turning on his quarterbacks. "The T.O. Show" has had 3 seasons on VH1. If you'd like to watch the T.O. Show, go here. I'm not a big T.O. fan, so I'll suffice with quoting a few mainstream media reviews of the show:
"The T.O. Show," which amounts to a half-hour image-building exercise for the heavily muscled star. What VH1 gets out of the deal, frankly, is less clear, other than a strange amalgam of soap-opera pathos and jock-like bravado, with Owens taking marching orders from his ubiquitous "publicists," who, given their time commitment to the athlete, surely must have no other clients.
Said publicists, Monique Jackson and Kita Williams, are billed as close friends of the mercurial, diva-like NFL standout, joining him (per the release) "on his road to discovery, playing an essential role in Terrell's quest for success and personal growth."
As is, this whitewashed version isn't without its moments, but it's clear from the get-go that the star's "road to discovery" will be paved with puffery, and that the publicists/image-masseuses are handling the directions.
Now that's interesting. Zuckerberg is maintaining she wants something inspirational and it sounds like the T.O. Show is PR-motivated and driven. A PR-driven "Silicon Valley" reality show sounds like what a lot of people would like.
The there's the LA Times review:
Although a portion of a subsequent episode promises better things -- Owens goes home to Alabama, where he has some genuinely touching encounters with the grandmother who raised him, now stricken with Alzheimer's, as well as the father who essentially ignored him -- the pilot sells the series as a sort of publicist boot camp.
Again with the PR-driven angle.
But before you start seeing too much light at the end of the tunnel, let's take a look at what Examiner.com has to say:
Often looking like the neglected love child of The Real World and The Hills, we view Owens' steamy hook up with his real estate agent in a hot tub and watch as he hosts a house party that upsets his seemingly omnipresent publicists. With the amount of women who force their way onto the one hour premiere--including Williams and Jackson--you spend a good portion of the episode wondering how much footage is pre-planned or, at the very least, loosely scripted.
And we're back to the reality-TV stereotype.
As for Den of Thieves' other show, Peak Season... well, Jersey Shore with snowboards is certainly what comes to mind at first blush.
I particularly like Wikipedia's participant descriptions: "The party girl." "The snowboarder." "The violent drunk." "The good girl."
Presumably, Zuckerberg and the cast have seen the pilot and are content with it. I could see where Zuckerberg may be of the mindset she's guiding the show like T.O.'s publicists were guiding his. And for all we know, she may be. Den of Thieves seems to have operated in a "build the star up" mode for T.O., and that show got renewed. Twice.
On the other hand, Den of Thieves appears to have made a visitation to the trashy side of reality TV. So I can't dismiss fears of tawdriness that many people are having.
It's very unrealistic to expect a reality TV show not to have some party scenes and romantic plotlines. How tastefully they're done and what percentage of the show they take up is a better question. How the raw footage is edited will make a huge difference. What kind of notes are given by Bravo may tweak the show in different directions from the pilot to the second episode. We're just going to have to wait and see.