City Girl Diaries: Pretty but too puerile

If there's a golden rule of reality TV, it's "Get out of the comfort zone".

If you can't put some pressure on participants, then don't bother even making the show.

I'm talking to you, City Girl Diaries.

It's so cosy it feels like a complete waste of time.

The show centres on five 30-something women in New York - their work, friendship and love lives.

There's Leigh the ring leader, Marianne the gogetter, Leila the artistic one, Kelly the sweetheart and Raina the classy one.

Kind of like Sex And The City, but the Carrie Bradshaw analogy stops there.

The quintet work in the typical mix of public relations, media and fashion industries.

We follow them as they eat, shop, go outzzzzz. Sorry. Dozed off there for a moment.

They may be beautiful, stylish and have good careers, but there's no sex, drama or a discernible plot.

They whine and dine, laugh at their own jokes and are so nice to one another it makes me want to gouge my eyes out from sheer boredom.

So far, the only incident to make them uncomfortable is being the butt of some jokes during a stand-up comedy routine.

The closest this gets to a reality show is the narcissism displayed by the annoying women.

They brag about their achievements. They blather non-stop about their dreams and expectations, and wax lyrical about how far they have come. It would be interesting if even one of them had a touch more personality than a doorknob.

The show feels like a 40-minute commercial for themselves.

As Marianne confirmed in an article: "If you ever get the opportunity to do reality TV, take full advantage of it. Promote yourself or your product.

"Someone is bound to stumble upon my true talent while channel surfing."

They may see your talent, but you're not memorable because the producers have been too nice.

Successful reality TV shows such as Survivor and The Bachelor bank on the dramatic powder keg of grouping strangers together.

That's when you get unscripted, genuine reactions, the fights, the double-dealing and the drama.

If the participants already know one another - like The Simple Life or The Amazing Race - putting them in alien settings adds frustration.

I'm fine with stupid reality TV, but it can't be boring.

These women know one another's quirks, but they avoid pushing the wrong buttons.

They're friends and want to stay that way. Admirable stuff, but not something I want to watch.

The big question is why choose these women?

City Girl Diaries is just narcissism from start to finish and no different from millions of video blogs on YouTube apart from better production values.

If the creators had simply gone online, they could have saved themselves the budget and us the trouble of watching.

City Girl Diaries airs on Fridays at 8.45pm on Star World (SingTel mio TV channel 301, StarHub TV channel 501 and 555)

bang@sph.com.sg

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