Do we take TVshows too seriously? Following the EastEnders' storyline, I'm inclinedto think so.
For what feltlike forever, but was actually just a few weeks, my Facebooktime-line consisted of posts asking who killed Lucy Beale. My firstthought was to try to explain to these people that nobody did andit's not real. My second thought was to delete everyone who continuedto post this nonsense. I couldn't do that though, as almost everyoneI have in my Facebook friends was caught up in this bizarrespeculation over a fictional murder. Of course I have my ownfavourite TV shows which I love to watch.
However this seemed to gobeyond just watching something, enjoying it and maybe discussing itwith a few friends afterwards. I did begin to wonder if perhaps therise in reality TV shows had led at least some of these people to infact believe that EastEnders is another reality show. Surely not?These are people with jobs and an education and common sense, or so Ithought.
Following therevelation of the murderer as the victim's brother, Bobby Beale,people actually took to Twitter to accuse an unsuspecting BobbieBeale (notice the variation in spelling) of murder, asking the poorgirl why she had killed Lucy. This would suggest that they believeEastEnders is real. As it turned out Bobbie has a dog named Lucy, sowas quite confused , thinking that people were accusing her of murderingher own dog.
The tweets were so convincing that the real life BobbieBeale thought that it was a a real murder that she was being accused of. Not tobe out done, American viewers had to go one step further than us in thefalse belief that EastEnders is supposed to be real. An AmericanYouTuber said he was unsure about the reality of the show because hehadn't seen anything about Lucy's murder in the news.
He couldn'tunderstand why the police weren't called, saying it was illegal andcompared the soap to reality shows like The Real Housewives ofAtlanta. For his sake I really hope he was joking.
To be fair,perhaps people can't be blamed for mistaking it for another realityTV show. The BBC seems to have a knack for cancelling good(fictional) TV shows, such as Atlantis, The Fades, In the Flesh, toname just a few.
Instead it is quickly filling up the viewingslots with shows such as The Voice and Strictly Come Dancing andother channels seem to be doing the same thing. With this in mind,maybe people are now confused and think all TV is reality Television.It certainly would explain a lot.
