Reality show

Channel Ten has made some pretty unfortunate investments in the past - shows such as The Resort and The X-Factor come to mind - but in terms of dollars-for-ratings-points, Douglas Wood would have to be among the worst of them.

Ten reportedly paid Wood up to $400,000 for an "exclusive" interview with Sandra Sully on Sunday. It didn't even reach the ratings top 10 for Sydney on the night.
- David Dale.

Why Wood didn't rate; because everybody smells a rat. Wood's tale is just too conveniently harrowing. Look, I have sympathy for anyone under duress but a lot isn't adding up here and Wood sensationalising his "survival" just, you know, like, smells of Denmark (Hamletian).

Put it this way, reality telly gets the ratings and the bb's (Backyard Blitz and Big Brother) trumped. Wood's story just sounds too made-up. There is only one kind of made-up that rates these days, and that's satire. If Wood had starred in a Roy & HG reconstruction of his whole "ordeal" everybody would have watched.

Incarcerations happen on the mundane level everyday. Wood has glaucoma? Well that's really too bad, but so did Mr Average and he spent 40 years of his working life looking at carcasses in a meatworks before dying of prostrate cancer. Woods imprisonment only lasted 47 days and is now over. Bully for him. If he really cared, he might donate his $400,000 dollar ransom from Channel ten to charity.

If there is one thing that reality entertainment has tuned the populace too, it's the knack for spotting posers.

Do I give a damn? Yes, yes I do. Do I trust Wood? No, no I don't.