UnREAL

Let me get this straight before I begin: unReal is disturbing and sickening and hard to watch. But that is the aim of this show.

It centers around a fictional reality dating show called "Everlasting". The show may start out slow, but by the second episode, it sinks its teeth in.

The main character, Rachel, is suffering from some sort of mental disease. It seems like she is bipolar. The show's manager, Quinn, is a complete control freak while Rachel, Shia and Jay manipulate the bachelorettes, Quinn is really the one doing the manipulating.

I like to think that this show is very similar to house of cards, and like house of cards, it seems realistic in a very strange way. I have no doubt that a lot of this stuff really goes on behind the scenes of these sorts of shows, and that is what unReal does best. The scenes that it spends showing how the handlers manipulate fights, arguments and who is eliminated really hits home hard.

9/10

As a 33 year old male, Lifetime isn't where I tend to look for my programming but I actually like this show.

The cruel way that the 'actors' are manipulated is very believable.

My favorite is the boss, Constance Zimmer plays a powerful bitch beautifully.

This show is everything I generally don't like: a sequential drama with romantic subplots (and even the main-plot, kinda). But I ended up really liking it so maybe give it a try if the premise is interesting to you. Give it two episodes, if you aren't interested after that then you can probably safely pass on the rest of the season.

This show is incredible. The writing, acting, direction, all excellent. And how timely, with the fascination of all things "real", which is to say, of course, not close to real at all. The manipulation of the lead characters is stunning in it's depravity. As a friend who's watched it said, "this is on Lifetime?" I'm no fan of reality TV and this skewers it to the wall, warts and all. I have a suspicion that there's a good bit of truth behind this show, from the story lines, the "girls" and the "bachelor" and the crew. It's equally entertaining and frightening. Saw all four currently out in sequence, but each one is great. Sometimes brutal, the well-acted psychosis of the main characters is worth the watch.

An original show with salacious character development and juicy "made for TV" story lines. If you're looking for something that'll make you think and feel good about watching with positive, happy people, then this might not be for you (Lifetime generally isn't at all like PBS). But if you, like me, hate reality TV and would like to see the gritty, honest (as honest as they can for TV) side of film making and how people behave behind the scenes to wreak drama and tension for ratings, or the shots that viewers think are "real" and not heavily edited or manipulated, then this show is for you.

If you, like Chris Harrison, is offended by UnREAL, you probably got your "competing to find true love and monetary rewards with a stranger that's being filmed" bubble burst.

Honestly, this is the most evil and cruel thing I have watched in TV for a long time. I am really concerned if this is a real depiction of the behind-the-scenes of reality shows. If it is, people that do this to other people should burn in hell.