Some people despise reality TV shows and can’t wait to point out to you how it’s brain numbing TV at its worst. Now I fall both sides of the fence on the argument, because I do think quite a lot of “reality” TV is about as real as a scripted soap, but I also believe we can learn things from some reality TV.

Case in point… I’ve been watching a UK show called The Family. The series is in its second season and features the Grewal family going about life as cameras capture their every move. What I find fascinating about this season is the Grewals are a British Indian family and this is a wonderful document as to how similar we all are, regardless of race or culture. The Grewals have the same issues as most of us and it also brings us great insight into Asian family culture. I’ll pop the trailer for this season below so you can check it out. If we can learn anything from reality TV it should be that we all have far more similarities than we do differences and we should embrace that fact.

Apparently Oprah has a bit of a huge announcement in the works and it’s not going to please fans of her long running talk show. The first lady of talk is allegedly calling it quits on completion of her 25th season. That means Oprah fans will be tuning in for the last time around September 2011.

The Oprah Winfrey Show first aired way back in 1986, I know can you believe that, remember that big hair?! Wow, well Oprah has her own production company and network, so let’s assume she’s not going to fade off into the distance never to be heard from again. The OWN channel is expected to debut next year some time.

You know how I was saying some reality shows are informative and some are insipid bowls of garbage (well that’s not exactly word for word, but close enough), well Beauty and the Geek is the latter as far as I’m concerned. That said this show has managed to garner a second season from channel 7 in Australia so it obviously has a fairly big fanbase.

The final of Beauty and the Geek Australia airs Thursday November 26 at 8.30pm and you’ll get to see one ‘beauty’ and one ‘geek’ walk away with the prize money if not their pride. Should you feel you fit into either category and you want to be the next beauty or geek, you can head over to Yahoo7 and apply for the next season.

I have no idea how this show has managed to squeeze out four seasons, but it has; someone has friends in high places. That said the ratings are still on the slippery slope with the series reaching an all new low of just over 5 million viewers, around a quarter of a million less than last week. Needless to say this means Heroes was beaten by all and sundry, including House with its fairly whopping 13 million and How I met Your Mother with around 8.5 million.

Are any of you guys still watching Heroes? Even my friends who were die-hard fans of the show aren’t that fussed about the new season. If you are still watching, what’s your reason? Do you just want to see how it ends, feel you’ve come this far, might as well see it out?

If you were a fan of Guiding Light and in particular a fan of the Otalia duo, this one is for you. The couple Olivia Spencer and Natalia Rivera Aitoro are soon to be featured in a web series called Venice. Yes they were that popular! The couple are played by Crystal Chappell, and Jessica Leccia.

Anyway let’s cut to the chase, the first teaser for the series is now available, so Guiding Light fans and Otalia fans, check it out below. Oh and incase you want to know the song is by Jen Foster and it’s called Venice Beach.

I know we usually cover TV shows in all their genres here at Snarkerati, but one area that we tend to overlook is the arena of TV news. This is odd given TV news is something all networks feature (in some form) and there are even entire networks dedicated to this particular TV genre, but is it a dying genre? This is a question a friend and I recently discussed when speaking about how the media and in particular television news seems to have gone from being a source of professional and scrupulous newsworthy information, to now being a politically biased, corporate led melting pot of deceit and at times misleading infotainment.

Whether you agree or not, TV news is changing and there are numerous reasons for this. The internet and immediacy of information being two of the main reasons, but also social change, policy, business strategies, ratings and trying to compete in the new world of “journalism”. What do you think of the news you now receive through some of the major TV news outlets? Have you spotted the political leanings, the “fluffed” up story telling to make things sound less factual and more terrifying, amazing or ‘insert headline grabbing adjective here’.

Writer, director, producer and cool looking dude Larry Charles seems to be working on something new for NBC. Possibly most famous for writing shows like Mad About You (loved that show!) and Seinfeld, Charles is now said to be working on a comedy series about scifi geeks.

In Charles’ own words the new show will depict “contemporary American life through the prism of a do-it-yourself homemade aesthetic that will mix mediums.” What he actually means is a group of scifi fanboys (and girls hopefully! We do exist!) get together in a small town and make their own version of a TV show they’ve all loved that was canceled. Sounds pretty cool, hopefully it will all come together and make it to air at some point.

It’s caused more than its fair share of upset, Jennifer Morrison leaving House, walking out on her men in the show, never to be seen again. The blogging world went nutso and House fansites cried afoul that Morrison was an awesome character and how could the producers do this!

Well now there’s a rumor floating around that she might eventually return after all. Morrison herself was speaking to E! Online at the Star Trek bluray release party and even she seemed completely baffled as to what her status is. Morrison states “I’m still a series regular, technically. I really don’t know. All I know is that I don’t know. And they keep making it very clear to me that I don’t know. I feel bad [because I wish] that I had an answer for people. But, uh, anything could happen I guess.”

Personally I think if she’s been shelved and they haven’t even had the decency to clarify with her where she’s at she should flip them the bird and go find other projects.

Apparently anonymous blogger ‘Belle de Jour’ has outed herself after an ex threatened to do it for her. Now scientist Brooke Magnanti says it was she who penned the blog which led to numerous books and the TV series Secret Diary of a Call Girl starring Billie Piper.

Magnanti is now a research scientist in child health for the University of Bristol and apparently her present job is safe, with the University allegedly commenting that her past has no relevance with regards to her present position (pun intended). Another mystery no one really cared about solved, huzzah!

It seems the Aussie public are relatively split in their feelings as to whether Rove’s announcement on Sunday night to quit his show was a good or bad thing. Rove McManus for those outside of Australia is essentially Australia’s Jay Leno, he is the face of weekly, late night talk show mayhem. Rove also produces numerous other projects and hosts “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader”.

Even though Rove is a popular guy, loads of people - me included - feel this couldn’t have come at a better time. Recently his show “Rove” has suffered with abysmal guests and out of studio interviews for actual celebrities. It seemed like every week it was another case of his friends being brought on as guests and any non Aussie stars being interviewed in a hotel room someplace. Maybe this is a little telling of how non Australian celebrities view Australia. Whatever the case Rove’s show slid downhill faster than the roadrunner on acid. Good luck to him though, maybe he’ll join the 7PM project and put some actual life into that.