Look, let’s face it. Reality TV has never really been known as high-brow entertainment, has it? But if you think the likes of Love Island and The Masked Singer are out there – brace yourself.
Across the pond, there have been a string of reality shows over the yers that have left viewers flabbergasted, whether it’s for their cut-throat format or relaxed attitudes to things like relationships, plastic surgery or, y’know, people’s feelings.
Saying that, there are still some home-grown shows that have left us pondering “how exactly did a room full of people agree that creating this show was a good idea?”.
Here are just 10 of the reality shows we still can’t believe actually existed…
I Wanna Marry Harry
Back when Prince Harry was still a single man, the premise of this completely ludicrous show was that a group of American women were flown to the UK, where they competed for the affections of a man they were led to believe was the Duke Of Sussex, but who was actually a look-a-like.
And we use that term loosely.
Eventual winner Kimberly Birch later hit out at the show, claiming the girls all knew fine well that “Prince Harry” was an imposter, but were manipulated into thinking they were just being paranoid by producers, who even urged doubters to speak to a fake therapist for reassurance.
Shattered
A reality show where contestants truly were pushed to their limits, the participants in Shattered were required to stay awake for a full week in a bid to try and win £100,000.
What Channel 4 hadn’t banked on, though, was quite how dull watching a load of people trying not to fall asleep would be for viewers.
CelebAir
When you start running out of skills celebrities can learn as part of a TV show, you have to think outside the box, and that’s exactly what the producers of CelebAir did when they came up with a show that would see a host of C-listers training to become cabin crew members.
Let’s be real, though. While the show itself wasn’t the most entertaining, we’d definitely fly with any airline that had Lisa Scott-Lee as a stewardess.
Flockstars
No, but seriously. Who gave the green-light to a show where Fazer from N-Dubz, Tony Blackburn and Brendan Cole herd up a load of sheep?
It says a lot that even the involvement of Leslie Joseph couldn’t hold our attention.
Lindsay
“Cut the bullshit”
″’K”
Surely this is of the finest exchanges in reality TV history.
What was so unbelievable about Lindsay wasn’t that the former “wild child” got her own reality show (forgive us, docuseries), but just how uneventful it ended up being.
Of course, she did then follow this up years later with Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club, which we haven’t even got enough hours in the day to get into...
Totally Jodie Marsh
This MTV reality series saw Jodie Marsh choosing a spouse from a group of eligible bachelors, eventually plumping for the ex-boyfriend of her public rival, Katie Price (funny, that).
In 2015, Jodie admitted she was “ashamed” of the show, describing it as “the worst period of her life”.
Bridalplasty
People love bridal shows, and people love shows about plastic surgery. Put ’em together and what have you got..? This ill-advised reality series, apparently.
Love Is Blind
A recent addition to the list, we couldn’t not include Love Is Blind. The two-season Netflix show sees contestants living in isolated pods and talking to each other through a wall, only being allowed to see their companions until they agreed to get married.
And that’s just the tip of the messy iceberg.
Weirdly, the show became a global hit just weeks before the entire world went into lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, and returned for a second run in 2022.
Peter Andre’s Bad Boyfriends Club
A reality show designed to capitalise on the popularity of Peter Andre at the time, it saw the Mysterious Girl singer helping out disgruntled girlfriends in an attempt to straighten out their badly behaving boyfriends. Sure.
Temptation Island
Long before Love Island became a runaway success for ITV2, Temptation Island was a smash the world over, with editions airing in the UK, America, Australia, Italy, Spain, Russia, Romania and countless other countries.
What better way to test your relationship than to head to two separate private islands with a load of people you fancy, get plied with alcohol and just let the cameras see what happened?