Truman Show becomes a reality

Australian Mercury | November 3 2004

REALITY TV phenomenon Big Brother could go on forever in a new version of the show planned in Germany.

Instead of candidates living for several weeks inside a compound, German media reports say producers of the show are building a small town, complete with market square, church, shops, workplaces and a small forest.

Contestants will be able to live in the town for decades, study or go to work, get married, have families and go about their everyday lives – in fact theoretically stay in their artificial world until they die.

The planned format has drawn comparisons with the 1998 Hollywood film The Truman Show starring Jim Carrey, who is unwittingly the subject of a 24-hour television "reality" program.

Production firm Endemol confirmed it was planning to launch the new Big Brother version in February or March next year in what the company's general manager for Germany, Borris Brandt, describes as similar to a soap series but "real, with real people".

Although reports speak of a town, Mr Brandt has indicated in one report the company is merely putting up a few buildings on a site near Cologne.

The candidates could live in the community for decades, being followed 24 hours a day by at least 100 cameras, more than 100 microphones and probably millions of viewers.

Candidates will be several groups of young unemployed people who will be expected to live normal lives, catch up on studies they missed at school, learn languages, take professional examinations and work either at the Big Brother site or outside.

Additional "reality" will come from extras acting as residents of the town. But the personal dramas, sex lives and the everyday human conflicts and dilemmas, which are grist to the mill of Big Brother fans, will be the ingredients most expected from the candidates to keep the ratings up.

---------------------------

E mail your comment on this article to prisonplanetweb@hotmail.com and have it posted here.