If Someone's Gotta Go, it should be the producers of the show

With television programs you usually have the choice of bottom of the barrel, idiotic, brazen, a complete copy, or boring. Since the advent of cable television programming this has widened a bit to the sophomoric, the original, the good, and the blatantly wild/violent. On rare occasion, mostly by accident, we even sometimes get a great show. But rarely is an idea on cable or broadcast television so far into bad taste as what I have heard is now in production.

Fox Network is creating a new reality television program, yes yet another one. But this on has a twist. A bitter hemlock sort of twist. The show, made with Endemol USA – responsible for Fear Factor and Deal or No Deal – is called Someone’s Gotta Go. There is your first clue how bad the taste in your mouth will be.

Someone’s Gotta Go is the opposite of the Apprentice. The premise is that a small company of some 15 – 20 employees, cannot continue to keep everyone in this economy. So the books are opened up, co-workers gather and likely plot to isolate an employee, and then a vote commences. The winner of the vote gets fired.

No joke. No punchline. They are now part of the expansive number of people on unemployment in this nation. And you get to watch this happen on national tv.

Now there is one consolation for the loser. They will receive an undisclosed severance pay. It is unclear, but likely, that the television show will pay that severance.

But that hardly makes up for the loss of a job, the search for a future position, and the embarrassment of the worker and/or their family. I mean what is that person to do? Walk into an interview and be recognized as the guy (or gal) who everyone at their old job said goofed off and thus was fired. Well that really will help the resume.

What about the family of that former employee? Imagine the kid that has to go to school with the stigma that their parent was so incoherent that they lost their job on national tv the day before. Kids would never use that public display of incompetence to pick on someone. Plus the fame of being a loser and useless is just the kind of self-esteem building experience that every kid, or adult for that matter, needs in a time of economic crisis the likes of which most have never seen before.

I can’t understand one aspect of this show that is entertaining, fun, family-oriented, or positive. If you can, please do share that with me.

I understand that all good ideas seem to have dried up in Hollywood. I understand that a ‘reality’ program is the most cost-effective way to keep couch potatoes vegetative for an hour at a time. But where is the decency. Where is the respect for another human being?

And if this show, somehow, becomes better than the bottom of the Neilsen ratings what comes next? A show about kids dropping out of school? A show following the homeless begging? A show where someone gets to lose all their money – oh wait, that’s the Obama economic plan.

Look, I understand that television today is all about the lowest common denominator. That the cheapest, fastest television programming is the first line of approach. Still there has to be some modicum of quality and sensitivity involved. Or have we all just gotten to the point where when we are given sand we will drink it like water?