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Steven Biller

My friend Brett revels in other people’s misery. He is one with his TiVo, missing nary an episode of too many reality shows. He howls when calamity befalls certain characters and critiques their actions (or performances in the talent competitions), yelling at his HD behemoth with either the conviction of a Baptist congregation or the ruthlessness of a tough love counselor.

I have always wondered why we need reality shows (except during the writer strike last year) when we have CNN’s coverage of the elections, Midwest floods ... and does anybody remember the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Nevertheless, reality shows — propelled in the early 1990s with MTV’s The Real World, which put a young Latino face on the AIDS epidemic with cast member Pedro Zamora’s crusade to educate his generation about the pandemic (one of precious few meaningful subplots of any show) — have become a staple of prime time.

Reality shows have a firm grip on the networks’ highly desirable 18- to 25-year-old viewers — and the Coachella Valley has enjoyed its fair share of air time as a setting (Bravo’s Boy Meets Boy and the nationally televised wedding between Trista Rehn, star of ABC’s The Bachelorette, and Ryan Sutter were filmed in Rancho Mirage) and as a place to find talent.