If you are like the rest of us, you have seen your fair share of reality TV. Have you seen Showtime’s Couple’s Therapy? Its third season is now underway. At first glance, it seems unethical to peer into the lives of struggling couples as they try to figure out why their relationship is in trouble. Under normal circumstances, no therapist would invite complete strangers into their office to observe counseling sessions. Yet here we are.
We can set aside the ethics due to all the participants engaging in a virtually wide-open counseling session by their own free will and volition. With that addressed, viewers might expect Couple’s Therapy to be like any other unscripted – or semi-scripted, depending on your point of view – reality show. But this show is different.
From the set to the lighting, we get a quite different vibe from Couple’s Therapy. But presentation alone cannot account for the very different feelings this show evokes. So what is it? The Chicago Tribune’s Nina Metz may have the answer.
Not Stoking Conflict
Metz gave Couple’s Therapy a very good review in a recent piece published on the paper’s website. She is an avid watcher, even admitting she was unsure about Couple’s Therapy when it first premiered. She had the same ethical conflicts to deal with. Once she got those out of the way, she was able to view the show with a dispassionate eye.
Among the many differences she points out is the one thing that makes the difference here: Couple’s Therapy doesn’t seek to stoke conflict in order to make for good television. That one thing sets it apart from nearly every other reality show. Ponder that for a minute.
Do you remember the Billy the Exterminator reality series from a few years back? Though the show no longer runs, people still talk about it. Did you know that the show’s namesake cast member, Billy himself, worked hard to keep producers focused on the exterminating business instead of family drama? Industry insiders say he was constantly steering producers and cameramen away from the drama.
Conflict Boost Ratings
Whether you are talking about a survival show or a show tracking a contemporary American family muddling its way through life, the one constant is conflict. TV producers know this. They also know that conflict boosts ratings. So on most reality shows, they do what they can to stoke it.
Even with a show like Life Below Zero, where cast members are largely isolated from one another, personal conflicts are still highlighted. In addition, the scripts are written for narrators and purposely contain language meant to put viewers on edge. We will hear something at the beginning of the show that seems to indicate a pending tragedy, only to discover that the real incident doesn’t even come close to the narrator’s introduction.
Therapy Resolves Conflict
Knowing that reality TV stokes conflict for entertainment purposes leads to the question of how Couple’s Therapy manages to succeed. First of all, conflict is built into the show by the mere fact that it deals with couples in therapy. But the show’s therapist generally seeks to help couples resolve their conflicts. People who enjoy a happy ending appreciate that.
The show is not that far off from what you might experience in couple’s counseling at a clinic like Rye, NY’s Relationships & More (R&M). According to R&M therapists, resolving conflict is what couple’s therapy is all about. Stoking that conflict would be counterproductive. Perhaps we inherently know this, which is why we don’t mind the Couple’s Therapy approach to reality TV.
