I hate reality television because it hogs resources from legitimate shows like a weed does from flowers. That being said I have to say that if there HAS to be a reality show then it should be The Biggest Loser. TBL is a bunch of fat people who strive to lose weight; I assume the winner—the person who loses the most weight at the end—wins some sort of cash prize.
Apparently they understand that comparing a 200lb person’s weight loss to a 500lb person’s weight loss cannot be done with mere numbers alone, they know they can’t just say “A lost 10lbs while B lost 150lbs so B wins”. This is why instead of using their raw numbers they use percentages, the ratio of weight lost to weight at the start of the show. This is good. Unfortunately it’s not good enough. A 500lb person can easily lose 200lbs bringing them down to 300lbs; that’s a 40% loss. However for a 200lb person to lose 40%—which is 80lbs—to get down to 120lbs is a LOT more difficult. They were smart enough to avoid raw numbers but did not do enough math to make this a truly fair competition.
Oh well, at least it’s a useful, positive influence reality show for once. Of course I can’t wait for it to end so that real shows can come back to the time slot it hijacked.