Mitchell Toy: The reality TV shows Melburnians deserve

As the nation’s glued the fiction that is Married At First Sight, Melburnians deserve a show that actually reflects reality. Fancy a go at Flat Pack Assembly with the Stars? These are the shows networks should totally produce next.

web images for mitch toy piece on reality tv

The popularity of Married At First Sight proves once again that the human evolutionary process is far from complete.

As reality shows continue to offer content that is, in fact, far from reality, Melburnians deserve programming that accurately reflects day to day life.

Here are ten ideas for truly real reality TV shows that networks should absolutely produce.

THE 12 TYPES OF TRAIN COMMUTERS YOU NEED TO AVOID

WHAT YOUR SUBURB’S COAT OF ARMS SHOULD LOOK LIKE

YOUR GUIDE TO SPEAKING MELBURNIAN

THE BACHELOR DEGREE

A group of Arts graduates specialising in film and gender studies gradually realise they are under qualified as they all compete for the same white collar job.

Those who do not receive a rose must go and work in hospitality.

Nick Cummins infamously chose neither of the final girls in The Bachelor finale.

Just like the recent controversial series of The Bachelor, the employer reserves the right to hire none of them after they all interview terribly and those given probation stuff it up.

DECIDING WHAT TO WATCH ON NETFLIX AT FIRST SIGHT

After psychologists match up couples most likely to fight on camera, the strangers are thrust under a doona with a tablet device to meet for the first time and decide what to watch on Netflix.

Arguments over genre, who’s seen what previously and who’s leeching off whose account come to a head in a passive-aggressive battle royale ending in scrappy compromises and, ultimately, one or both of the participants nodding off.

I’M AT A PARENT TEACHER INTERVIEW, GET ME OUT OF HERE

Pulled from the comfort of modern life and pushed into a dangerous environment where their own failings will be laid bare, the eye of the camera follows bad parents, bad students and bad teachers and they attempt to shuffle blame at a fold-out table in a school gymnasium.

Truly, no-one wants to be here.

Each party is given the chance to rat on the others in bitchy to-camera segments, and eventually it is agreed that the worst problems can be blamed on the structure of the curriculum.

WEST GATE TRUCKERS

Wrestling daily with the feeling that the road beneath them could spontaneously fall away, these trans-Yarra truckers battle roadworks, frequent lane closures and their own wits as they haul goods to and from Melbourne’s West.

Just like its namesake show set in the far northern hemisphere, every episode is bound to be more or less the same: boring, risky and infuriating.

ASSEMBLING FLAT-PACK FURNITURE WITH THE STARS

Actors, politicians and musicians in the twilight of their careers are paired up and told to put together furniture for a medium-sized home.

Physical fitness, persistence and emotional strength are tested as fingernails are broken on Allen keys and instructions are perilously ignored.

KEEPING UP WITH THE iOS SOFTWARE UPDATES

A show about people who are famous for doing very little, sitting around and constantly downloading and endless cavalcade of software updates for their iPhones and iPads.

It never ends.

BODY CORPORATE ISLAND

A throng of hot-blooded party-goers are shipped to an island where they drink by day and have to allocate funding for plumbing at night.

Haunted by all the things they never considered were involved in apartment block maintenance, the contestants must form quorate meetings and argue about leaky underground car parks, broken lifts, scuffed paintwork and testing fire extinguishers.

You know the fireworks would fly.

Tensions rise as meetings of previous meetings are doctored and one elderly resident refuses to cave on taking the cheapest, dodgiest option for waste removal.

REAL HOUSEWIVES OF INCARCERATED CRIMS

With a lot of time on their hands while their small-time crook husbands serve two and a half for armed robbery, these women really know how to live it up.

Strutting their stuff on the hard government carpet of Centrelink and the potholed bitumen of the Woolies car park, the day to day activities of these first ladies of petty crime will bore and confuse you, much like Real Housewives of Melbourne.