The trend for shows, these days, is violence and faux-reality, as witnessed by the ultra-violent mixed martial arts battles (hey, who doesn't love the idea of two men lying on a mat with both hugging each other while one pummels the other to a bloody mess, while the other tries to be "man" enough not to cry while being turned into tenderized meat?) and the scripted-but-don't-tell-anyone shows, such as . . . well, ALL of them!
And then, there are shows which bizarrely combine the two, such as "Cake Boss" on The Learning Channel, which is a blatant rip-off of "Ace of Cakes" on Food Network. I can't imagine what can be "learned" from a jerk who yells at his employees, and, astonishingly, even his customers, except, possibly, that people have become so numb at seeing abuse, if not being abused, either physically or mentally, that one cannot take their eyes off of this train wreck. However, as someone who cannot tolerate such, even if it's scripted or made solely for the benefit of the camera, much less that it is an evil clone of "Ace of Cakes", I will not watch this any more (my total viewing time was about 20 minutes over the course of 3 shows; I kept hoping that the tirades were one-time events). As an aside, I'm wondering how the network executives discussed this concept: "Hey, I got a GREAT idea! Let's copy an existing show which gets good ratings, but find somebody from a parallel and evil universe!" Very "Star Trek", but not good TV, at least not for us who don't like watching faux-wrestling!
