FOR THE LAST decade of my life, I have kept reality TV at arm’s length. As far as I’m concerned, the genre peaked in 2016, during the Celebrity Big Brother “David’s dead” incident, which saw Angie Bowie communicating the news of David Bowie’s death in a manner that caused grave confusion to her housemates on the show. What ensued is indescribable and can only be understood by watching the video of Tiffany Pollard spiralling, in sincere belief that her Celebrity Big Brother housemate, David Gest, died during filming.

For a lot of people, this was the last time that the theatre of reality television was truly exhilarating. Not for everyone, though, as the highly unserious Real Housewives franchise has witnessed a major revival. I have a major aversion to this style of show, which is punctuated at every ad break by repetitive previews of whatever dramatic climax each episode will reach. By the time the event actually occurs in the show, you’ve already seen it six times.

With all of that said, I’m in no position to judge people who watch reality television. There are probably meetings at RTÉ’s head office where execs are looking at my RTÉ Player viewing data asking “How much Fair City can one person watch?”

Recently though, my weeknights have featured fewer visits to Carrigstown and more trips to Casa Amor. It’s not my first time watching Love Island, but now that I’m firmly outside of the age range of........

© TheJournal