PopcornNation

When you enjoy television as much as I do, getting sucked into a show and its characters is a great thing. You want to care about and root for your favorite folks on the small screen. I mean you see them every week, if you didn’t feel at least a little something, then the show’s writers and actors would have to be doing something terribly wrong. If a favorite fictional character goes through any kind of trauma, it should affect you on some level. But what about when there aren’t any writers writing or actors acting?

Doug Blasdell, one of the trainers on the Bravo reality series Workout, passed away last January at the age of 44 from kidney failure. At the time, it was mentioned in small pieces in various magazines and entertainment news shows. When the 2nd season of the series started a few months later, I wondered just how this tragedy would be handled. The first few episodes came and went, and there was Doug, behaving just like he did when season 1 ended. He came across as a genuinely nice guy who cared deeply for his friends and his clients. About 4 or 5 episodes in, we saw Doug not feeling well and coughing a lot. Suddenly, there was no more Doug on screen, and it was just mentioned that he stopped showing up for work. Then, Jackie Warner (star of the series and owner of SkySport) got a phone call and was told that Doug had been hospitalized. She told the staff, and they were shocked, of course. On this week’s episode, the trainers were told how severe their co-worker’s condition was and that he probably woudn’t make it. Now this is when I start to wonder if maybe the cameras should have stopped rolling. I watched these people as they sobbed and mourned the loss of their friend, and I felt like an intruder.

The truth is, with this kind of show, even though you know you are watching a real person, you still see them as a character whose life starts after the theme song ends, and to watch the very real pain on the faces of Doug’s friends makes you realize just how real this person was. I felt guilty in some ways for wanting to see this, for making a point to watch this particular episode. This is a tragic thing that these people are going through, and it’s just a form of entertainment for me. I cannot imagine having to deal with all of this knowing it is being captured to broadcast on a cable channel. I mean, this isn’t singing the wrong note or missing a few moves in your dance routine. This is anyone who has access to a TV being able to witness what should be private. I love reality shows, but maybe, as a viewer, I don’t really have the right to see everything.

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