Celebrity-free reality TV not so bad

There are lots of things wrong with 'The Apprentice' - you never really believe, for one, that most of these job applicants would be trusted to deliver the mail in Trump Tower, let alone build it, and Trump's own outsized personality doesn't really allow any of the contestants to come into their own (this especially goes for the winners - how much sense do we really have of Bill and Kelly as people? They're ciphers, by and large, destined to be largely faceless cogs in a massive organization.) Still, 'Apprentice' was a sea change in reality television because it was about more than just becoming famous and debasing yourself in order to get there.

Ashton Kutcher's series 'Beauty and the Geek' and the new ABC series 'The Scholar' mark, in my opinion, the next evolution in the tradition of the reality television show. They boast the same positive aspects that made 'The Apprentice' the kind of reality show that allowed you to look at yourself in the mirror after watching. In 'The Scholar,' a group of incredibly bright students compete for a college scholarship, an education that will affect the rest of their lives. (I'd add, parenthetically, that the series also serves as a stinging critique of this country's domestic and educational policy: if it's true that students as bright and hard-working as these are worried about getting a college education for financial reasons, we really have a problem.)

In 'Beauty and the Geek', the contestants are - not to get too Platonic about it - engaging in a project of educational virtue, where they strive to become better and more excellent people, to develop their capacities. (Yes, some of these capacities include hotness, but Rome wasn't built in a day.) Still, we've come light-years from a program dedicated to showcasing the worst aspects of human nature.

Not only that, but the shows are blessedly celebrity-free. 'Beauty and the Geek's host VJ Brian McFayden is, at best, a B-list celebrity; the host of 'The Scholar' is to the best of my knowledge a complete unknown. This doesn't hurt the shows at all; quite the contrary, it puts the well-meaning, talented, deserving stars of the shows - the contestants - front and center. It's hardly a coincidence that the one genuine star associated with these shows, Ashton Kutcher, has as of this writing never appeared on screen. Compare this to 'The Apprentice' or the new Tommy Hilfiger knock-off (to use a fashion term), 'The Cut,' where celebrities appear regularly.

I'm not entirely Pollyannish about the future of the medium; the fact that Paris Hilton's mother Kathy has managed to get on the airwaves with a show of her own, for example, doesn't exactly strike me as a good omen, and Martha Stewart's arrival in the fall is, it seems to me, a thing to be dreaded. But I'm hopeful.

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