If you think today's reality TV shows go on forever, you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV is planning a new variant of the cut-price phenomenon that might literally never end.
Forever Eden, which is due to begin this spring, will take a group of unmarried people on an open-ended detour from their lives, transplanting them in a luxury resort abroad, then let them get on with everything that attractive and fun-loving single men and women might be expected to do when paid to spend the rest of their days on the beach or in bars.
"These people could be on the air for six months, a year or three years," Mike Darnell, Fox's head of alternative programming, told Variety magazine.
"If you want to stay and you play your cards right, you could be on the air forever. It's the first real try at a reality soap opera," he said.
The series is bound to invite comparisons to the 1998 film, The Truman Show, in which Jim Carrey plays the title role as a man who unwittingly spends his life in a reality TV bubble.
"The idea is they are not going on a reality show. They are actually divorcing themselves from their lives," Darnell said in another interview.
The contestants, who will have no contact with the outside world, will be kicked out of their TV paradise at the whim of the producers.
It is fair to expect that flamboyant and flirtatious behavior will be rewarded, while any participant who decided to lock himself in their room to meditate or write a major American novel will not last long.
Earnings will depend on longevity, and contestants who leave Forever Eden before their time is up risk losing their money.
"Even though they are living in luxury and it's going to be wonderful, we are going to introduce elements to make it not so wonderful," Darnell said.
"Surprise guests may arrive, who are there to stir things up, who won't necessarily be members of the cast, but could be people from their past," he said.
Casting the show has already begun, but it is unclear how big the ultimate cast will be. Fox has committed itself initially to 25 episodes. After that, Forever will last as long as TV viewers keep watching.
RSS