Until recently I had never watched any of the new (no longer really that new) type of structured reality show. I'd only seen a bit of Big Brother and that sort of thing years ago.
I watched quite a lot of The Real Housewives of Cheshire and it started to seem increasingly claustrophobic that they never really talked about anything bar their interactions with each other and their families, and future events and purchases they were planning. I'm not expecting them to conduct a seminar on theoretical physics or something, but it seems positively weird and artificial that they never talk about films they've seen, detailed accounts of what it was like living in other places, that sort of thing. Surely even people who are really into gossip talk about 'things' sometimes?
I also didn't like it that no-one seems to rebel against the prompts that producers apparently give people on shows like this which are basically stirring, and there isn't a meta element where people discuss those and the production agenda.
Is this typical? Are all recent, 'structured' reality shows like this?