To wonder why we love formulaic tv

[Mollymoo78]

Just watched the X factor on Saturday as a friend was watching it at her house and it was the same exploitative cliched overly staged rubbish it was years ago!! Does nobody care that it's the same formula year after year? Same with strictly, great British bore off, I'm a celebrity - it's the exact same thing year in year out - why aren't people bored of this yet?!!!

I was bored of it within weeks of series 1 and have boycotted it ever since!

People are bored of it

Some parts of X factor made me feel very uncomfortable - I felt that a bereaved family were shamelessly exploited in the obligatory "have you got a second song?" scene was so horribly set up.

people like the familiar. its why kids like reading the same stories over and over again or watching the same episodes of things like Thomas the tank engine.

I can stand x factor. watched about half an episode and just felt it was nasty exploitative tv. people go on it because they are desperate for their 5 mins of fame. don't understand bake off either if I am honest.

can should be cant obviously.!!

yep - totally over it! and agree re the sad stories. Who asks if someone only has one child. really?

Funnily enough i said somilar to dp - dragons den was on earlier. we decided there was only so many combinations of people with crap ideas asking for money and being sent packing we can sit through.

It is!! They pretend to be sympathetic to a female contestant who has been bullied then go on to ridicule other contestants because of the way they look and sing!! I suspect the really bad ones are just paid actors anyway but it is still ridiculing them for entertainment.

yep - totally over it! and agree re the sad stories. Who asks if someone only has one child. really?

I thought exactly the same.

Glad I'm not the only one!

I have to be honest, I did watch when it started. Mainly because there wasn't much else on. Then I got a job that included working Saturday nights so didn't watch it anymore.

Then after a few year, that job finished and I intended to watch it again. And it was awful.

It's all so staged. Peoples 'sad' stories that have nothing to do with anything. It's all emotional car crash TV. I can't watch anymore. It's awful.

I think as humans on the very basic level we are prone to appreciate and seek patterns. This extends to stereotypes in entertainment. Look at all the stock figures within the arts - commedia dell'arte, Falstaff, etc.