Sanctuary Fighting back the darkness with style.

The latest round of talks in the Writer's Guild strike are geting hopes up for fans everywhere that we may have a few more fresh episodes of our favorite shows if they can come to an agreement soon. I know I'm keeping my fingers crossed. This strike has been hard on everyone, and I will be very glad to see it end. But I am concerned about the networks dropping well written, action packed, thought provoking shows in favor of reality shows like American Gladiaor, Circus of the Stars, Survivor and Survivor clones, and a legion of other not-so-real, psuedo-scripted offerings.

The last writer's strike in 1988 lead to the creation of reality shows as a cheap, writerless alternative. This strike is prompting the offering of a slew of new reality shows. They are cheap to produce, not affected by writer's and actor's strikes, and people will watch them just to see what crazyness is going to happen next, but they just aren't as good.

Everywhere I see and hear people complaining or cracking jokes about Reality TV, yet we keep getting more of it from networks and producers who seem to be increasingly out of touch with what their viewers really want. Well, I say we ought to let them know what we really want. Let's hit them where it counts - in the ratings. Lets show them what we really think of their reality shows. Don't watch them. Don't give them ratings for shows that are second best. Don't watch it just because it's the only thing on.

Rent a movie, watch a rerun of a show you really like, watch something educational on Discovery or TLC, or just turn off the TV and read a book (I can recomend a few), but don't let them think for a moment that we'll be happy with tossed together sillyness where "real people" who have been carefully chosen for personality, looks, and quirkyness are put into unbelievable situations designed to make them do stupid things. Shows like Supernatural will fall by the wayside if we let the networks think we will be satisfied with whatever they want to give us.

We can show our support for the writers, and we can show the netwroks what we really think of their reality garbage. Turn off a Reality Show, today!