The girls from The Shire at Cronulla Beach: Beckaa, Gabby, Kerry, Sophie and Vernessa. Picture: Tim Hunter Source: news.com.au
TEN'S controversial new "dramality" series The Shire has kicked off, introducing viewers to a colourful bunch of strippers, surfers and wannabe pop stars.
Producers promised the series would disclose enough real life drama and controversy to keep viewers tuning in.
"One thing's for sure, Australia will be talking about it," Matt Campbell, managing director of the show's production company Shine, promised prior to to show's debut.
Facebook: Aussies turn off in droves before it starts [warning: language may offend]
Twitter: Read all the buzz on The Shire [language: ditto]
Facebook: And after the debut ...
The Shire - Rock Bottom Reality Or Trashy Enough To Be Fun?
Review by Emma Ashton, publisher of Reality Ravings
On the reality TV food chain shows like The Shire, The Only Way Is Essex and Jersey Shore are thought to be at the bottom because they confirm the view of reality critics that anyone can find fame and fortune regardless of talent or brains.
Set in "God's country" in Southern Sydney, The Shire, did little to dispel this stereotype.
Despite the show's narrator proclaiming ?there is no script? at the beginning of the show, clearly there is! I doubt sales assistant Gabby walking along the beach and bumping into ex-boyfriend Mitch was spontaneous. Luckily, there was even a party with another cast member, wannabe rapper Rif Raf, which Mitch could invite her to.
Speaking of fake, beauticians Vernesa and Sophie, were proud of their fake boobs, tan, and lips, however unfortunately for them their brains were real. All their conversations revolved around was their lips, Botox and how they actually believed fat-burning machines worked.
Another cast member, Beckaa, a part-time student and princess, returned from Dubai with designer gear and a nose job, boasting how her credit card was up to its $15,000 limit constantly. She was met at the airport by an older man who at first glance and interaction looked like a sugar daddy, however it was more disturbing to find out that he was her actual father.
While the usual ?characters? were all there, the issue for The Shire is it appears to not want to be like other "dramalities" or semi-scripted TV shows like the hugely-popular Jersey Shore. For those who don't know the show, Jersey Shore has managed to make it to six seasons with the same plot line in each series: go out, flash lots of flesh, get drunk, hook up and fight.
Is it trashy TV? Absolutely. But it?s also very entertaining ... in small doses.
Unfortunately, The Shire appears to have spooked itself and made a sanitised version. If you take out the "getting drunk, hooking up and fighting" what you?re left with is a bit of flesh and some plot lines in desperate need of development.
The one plot line viewers will see drawn out over the coming episodes is whether former couple Mitch and Gabby will get back together.
If it was Jersey Shore and Snooki arrived at a party to find her ex talking to a former girlfriend, she would have shoved her in the pool and belted back a few shots before unleashing her skanky dance moves to lure him back into her life. In The Shire all we saw was stilted conversation - yes, Gabby, it was ?awkward? indeed!
The problem for The Shire is at this stage the characters are not interesting or articulate enough to hold the viewers' attention on conversation alone. They need some controversy to liven it up.
Fortunately for Ten, Twitter was in a frenzy about the show. Unfortunately for�Ten the majority of views were negative.
Here's a snapshot:
The little popping noises are our brain cells dying. #TheShire @julesschiller
#TheShire appears really genuine apart from the fact that they all look and sound like they're reading auto-cue. @pjhelliar
Breaking News: The cast of Jersey Shore ready to sue anyone that compares them to the people in The Shire. #TheShire@MichaelByrnes
However, it did find a few fans with:
@lawyercas tweeting: At least #TheShire is more like The Hills than Jersey Shore. Mitch is a babe#justsayin
However @stufthatibought was right when she tweeted:
Fairly sure the only reason most of us are watching #TheShire is so we can tweet along with it. The power of social media.
Will that be enough to bring the viewers back next week? Ten will certainly hope so.
The Shire is lowest-common-denominator television, but this doesn?t mean it can't be entertaining, it just didn?t happen in the first episode.
Tell us what you think of the show below.
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