UnREAL - Discussions - *Sleuthing - Spoilers*

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Episode 1
Return
Original Airdate: June 1, 2015
Set against the backdrop of a fictional hit dating competition show, UnREAL is led by Rachel a young staffer whose sole job is to manipulate her relationships with and among the contestants to get the vital dramatic and outrageous footage the program's dispassionate executive producer, Quinn King, demands. What ensues is a humorous, yet vexing, look at what happens in the world of unscripted television, where being a contestant can be vicious and producing it is a whole other reality.

The summer television season is upon us, and with it comes the return of some fan favorites (including Hannibal and Strike Back). However, summer’s often also used as a place of experimentation for television networks with programming in their library that may not be able to compete with the heavy-hitters of the fall and spring. This brings us to Lifetime’s newest series, UnREAL.

Starring Shiri Appleby and Constance Zimmer, UnREAL is a new drama about the behind-the-scenes conflicts that occurs during the production of a Bachelor type dating show. Obviously that premise doesn’t sound like the most exciting idea in the world, nor does the fact that the show’s coming from Lifetime. But, believe it or not, UnREAL isn’t just good, it’s darn near fantastic… and Lifetime has released the first nine minutes of the pilot episode to help prove it.

You can watch the opening minutes of UnREAL for yourself, above.
Screenrant.com

julychild wrote:I didn't know where to put this, but it's a good interview that ties to this franchise and that new Lifetime series:


Former 'Bachelor' producer gets real on Lifetime's 'unREAL'
A former staffer from 'The Bachelor' has made a new show, 'unREAL,' that gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look at reality television

By AMY KAUFMAN

Sarah Gertrude Shapiro is the last person you’d ever expect would work for “The Bachelor.”

A native of Santa Barbara, she spent her college years at Sarah Lawrence, expanding her feminist outlook while studying filmmaking. She interned for Christine Vachon’s Killer Films and then worked as a studio manager for photographer David LaChapelle.

But when she moved to Hollywood to try and jump-start her independent film career, she quickly found herself in need of a paycheck. Enter “The Bachelor,” where she begrudgingly worked for nine seasons. She hated the gig so much, she says, that she eventually told her boss she was considering suicide in order to be let out of her contract.

That’s right: Working on “The Bachelor” was so soul-sucking that Shapiro says it nearly killed her. But it would also serve as unexpected creative fodder down the line. Ten years after exiting reality TV, Shapiro has co-created “unREAL,” a Lifetime series about a reality television producer named Rachel (Shiri Appleby) who is constantly making morally questionable decisions in order to keep her job on a dating show.

Shapiro, 37, says “unREAL”  isn’t based on “The Bachelor” per se, but let’s read between the lines: The program Rachel works on is about a dashing gentleman who lives in a mansion and courts dozens of attractive women. As a producer, Rachel is assigned a handful of contestants; if one of them ends up as the house villain, she receives a financial incentive. And she’s cash-strapped, so she does her boss’ bidding -- at one point, she learns a contestant’s father is gravely ill but keeps the information to herself so that the woman stays on TV. Her colleagues poke fun at how black contestants never make it far in the competition and believe its female stars should be hot and sexy but never act too promiscuous lest they not be considered "marriage material."

Before the premiere of "unREAL" on Monday -- conveniently just after the new episode of “The Bachelorette” concludes at 10 p.m. ET/PT -- we spoke to Shapiro about how her experience behind-the-scenes in the reality world contributed to her new venture.

How did you land “The Bachelor” gig?

I got a job on another innocuous reality TV show called “High School Reunion.” But being a dumb kid, I filled out my W9 and other forms and unbeknownst to me, had committed to unlimited renewable options for perpetuity. So I was in Hawaii, and the E.P. of “The Bachelor” called me and said, “I’ve heard good things about you. We want you to come work on ‘The Bachelor.’” And I said, “Oh my God, I’m a feminist. I can’t!”

So you were familiar with the show?

Oh, yeah. It was like the apocalypse to me. This was like asking a vegan activist to work in a slaughterhouse. But the E.P. was like, “Check your contract, honey.” So I did not have a choice. I had to do it or else risk breach of contract.

What was your role once you began working on "The Bachelor"?

I climbed the ranks from associate producer to field producer. I was coming up with romantic dates, writing story lines and conducting interviews. I was around during Andrew Firestone and Bob Guiney’s seasons -- three years and something like nine seasons in total.

Was there a final straw?

It all just added up. It was mainly when I realized that some of what was happening on the show was having a real-life impact on the contestants. You can say people know what they’re signing up for, but back then, I don’t think they did. We had people who were like, “I’m a massage therapist and somebody scouted me at the mall.” There weren’t artsy types or mean types. As time passed, slowly every girl who showed up had already cast herself. So we’d say, “We’re gonna send you to a bunny petting zoo!” And she would say, “Why would you do that? I’m the bitchy black girl!”

How’d you get out?

The only way out was to get fired, and I was such a good Jewish kid I could not make myself get fired. So in 2005, I told my boss I was going to kill myself if I didn’t leave. But they still didn’t want to let me out of my contract. They were convinced that I had been poached by someone like “Survivor” or Mark Burnett. I was like, “No. I want to literally go lie under my mom’s table.” So I said, “What if I leave the state?” And they were good with that because they knew I wasn’t going to work for the competition. Then I put all my stuff in my car and drove to Portland, Ore. I was so damaged. I never wanted to see Hollywood again. I was like, I’m gonna be a kale farmer. I couldn’t be near recording devices or talk on the phone for months.

Given your experience on the show, it seems realistic for viewers to assume “UnREAL” is about “The Bachelor.”

It’s not about a certain thing that happened while I was there. In college, I’d be sitting in a feminist seminar debating how much it would cost to sell your soul. And I’d always say, like, $50 million. And you find out it’s actually just a paycheck. The desperation of staying alive is intense -- 18 years of your parents building and defining your morality is just gone.

On “UnREAL,” producers get financial incentives if one of their “girls” ends up becoming the villain of the house. Did that happen on “The Bachelor”?

Not specifically, no. But you’re doing a job and if you’re doing a job well, you get promoted.

Are you worried that ABC might take issue with “UnREAL?”

I have been concerned about it. But it’s so far off from being an exposé. The secrets of reality TV is material for a half-hour special on VH1 -- not a long-running dramatic series.

Do you think viewers realize how fake reality TV can be?

Reality TV is so close to scripted TV at this point. It takes a really sophisticated set of skills to be able to manipulate those emotions out of people -- and viewers are so keen to phoniness. A lot of the producers who make reality TV are really, really smart. They’re performing like CIA-level interrogations.

So why are millions of people still watching these shows?

I read a study that said most of the people who watch “The Bachelor” make over $150,000 and have like a master’s level education. The princess fantasy is really alluring. Diamonds can hypnotize anyone. Sometimes I’d have to transport diamonds to the show and I politically don’t believe in diamonds. But I would still get weird around them. I’d want to put them on with my dirty, baggy jeans and down jacket. There’s this idea that some girls are pretty, pretty princesses who deserve to be taken care of. That whole idea of being rescued and saved and cared for is powerful.

This season on “The Bachelorette” it appears Kaitlyn Bristowe has sex with one man early on in the series and is subsequently “sl*t-shamed” by her remaining suitors. Do you think men on these dating shows are free to be more sexual than women?

It’s such a crazy pageant of gender roles that it doesn’t surprise me that sl*t-shaming happens. To be a perfect contestant, you should be a lawyer that gives really awesome [oral sex] and doesn’t really care about being a lawyer. Like, “I just passed the bar for fun!” The ideal girl is professionally successful, demure, submissive and sexy -- but not slutty.

What would you say to someone who is considering going on a reality show?

That you truly cannot know what you’re signing up for. You can’t understand the power of editing. There are a lot of really smart people making these shows. It’s a chess game you can’t win. There have been some people on reality TV who have totally worked the system, like the Kardashians, who have final cut on their show because they’re producers. But on “The Bachelor,” you can’t anticipate what you’re going to feel like when you have no phone, no Internet, no computer, no books, no radio, can’t control over your food and there’s a ton of alcohol. It’s pretty hard to keep control.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-unreal-sarah-gertrude-shapiro-bachelor-bachelorette-20150528-story.html#page=2

emusha wrote:I think i'm more excited about this show Unreal than the actual season of the bachelorette ....Sarah Shapiro is absolutely tiptoeing around the fact that the show is pretty much based on TB -- She probably hired lawyers to advise her on what and how she'd talk about TB to skirt around any legal issues...
good on her to make money off of this ridiculous franchise
Josh S.'s interviews were very strongly aligned with the way Sarah's show depicts the role of producers...

mods no problem if this link shouldn't be posted here but here's a promo for the show

Lifetime  ‏@lifetimetv  · 19m19 minutes ago  
What does it take to make great TV? A few characters and a little manipulation. Watch #UnREALtv on Monday at 10/9c.

MVMom39forever wrote:I am so excited for this one to start.

We could probably have contestant threads for this one just as we do for Bachelor/'ette.