I can't stand reality TV

That is funny I do the same thing, work out and wish I could eat by watching cooking shows at the gym.

Hmmm... I see I spoke too soon. Some of you, aparently, actually do watch this tripe. Tsk tsk. Shame on you.

Btw, I don't consider cooking shows or programs like "This Old House" or "Antiques Road Show" as 'reality' programming. These are genuine self-help or do-it-yourself type shows. They have nothing in common with crap like 'Survivor' or 'Dancing With the Stars.'

I never really got into any of the reality TV shows, of course I’m stuck watching survivor since it’s Morgan’s fav. Gotta give a little I guess.

I agree.
DYI's like This Old House aren't RT, but when they start making it a competition, it turns into one.
Same with cooking shows. I love Good Eats with Alton Brown. He entertaining, and educational at the same time. However, I once watch 5 minutes of something like Iron Chef and was turned off.

I want to watch these shows (TOH and GE) for ideas and instruction.

Did I ever mention I went to an Antiques Road Show with my granny's old coffee pot? Met a lot of interesting people standing in the long winding line. I remember someone had a pre WWII German cigarette machine. Very interesting.

There is one sort of like that, "Work of Art" I watched a bit of a marathon (as in, only a few out of the whole swath but back-to-back), and fell hard for the eventual winner, Abdi. Such a sweetheart, and genuinely talented.

But what it really proved is that it depended on your medium. The technically advanced artists had a much harder time than the conceptual artists, for example.

And the final show, where they had a lot more time to prepare, was an order of magnitude better than the quickie things they'd had to put together to get there. Different from Project Runway that way.

Graphic design would make a little more sense -- keep everyone in the same medium.

There is a carpenter one too, I've only seen tiny bits of it while channel surfing, it seems like a sound idea but the production values aren't super-high. (Not Bravo, maybe HGTV?)

I do love Project Runway though I have had a hard time catching the new ones.

I watched Real Housewives sporadically for a while -- I have a habit of watching whatever is on Bravo at lunchtime. I like some of them OK, but the whole thing has gone sour. The tone has gone from fun + trashy to tragic + trashy. They keep heightening things emotionally and the suicide of the Beverly Hills husband (forget his name) kind of put the lid on that whole thing for me.

I like Survivor but haven't caught it in forever.

Love "Top Chef" and also like the "Just Desserts" spin-off.

Tend to catch "Chopped" a lot just timing-wise (when we tend to be channel surfing before bed), I don't love it but the creativity shown in putting weird ingredients together can be interesting.

I kind of like that show about guys who buy storage units too, "Storage Wars"? They always cut out at the worst possible minute though, pisses me off.

And I never watch it anymore but that reminds me of "Antiques Roadshow," which is one of the originals in this genre but so British and genteel. I love antiques and weird old things and some of the people who brought something in expecting it to be worth maybe $100 and finding out that it's worth $100,000 were so fun to watch.

edit: just catching up, hadn't seen Chai's comment about Antiques Roadshow!!

Perfect example... like I am gonna want to watch a show titled "Douchebag"... the bar keeps getting lowered... eventually it will be called "scumbags".

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1672508/fred-durst-douchebag-cbs-sitcom.jhtml?xrs=eml_MTVNews17-durst

I think anyone that likes jersey shore and/or relates to it's characters must be of below-average intelligence.