Five reality shows that are begging for tune-ups

This summer marks eight years since "Survivor" debuted on CBS, and six since Fox's "American Idol" took its first steps toward its eventual domination of television. Reality TV rose to prominence thanks to the originality of those shows and others, and because they were born into a TV landscape that was largely growing stale.

Less than a decade ago, cloned sit-coms weren't offering laughs, and few dramas had any punch. With notable exceptions, TV seemed content to sit on its butt and fester until "Survivor" delivered a wake-up call during the summer, when most networks broadcast nothing but reruns.

The proliferation of reality TV since then has led some to fear for civilization, but besides providing hours of raw, original entertainment, it has had an exceptionally positive effect on TV. Competition has worked, as unscripted programming has spurred innovation in scripted TV; "Lost," for example, was initially conceived in part as a fictional version of "Survivor."

Now, though, a number of reality series have fallen into the same ruts as the scripted shows that came before them. Along with those awful shows that result when networks race to copy each others' successes or just bang out shows to fill time, there are also series that are aging rapidly.

Reality TV still offers innovation (like VH1's equally compelling and horrifying "Celebrity Rehab"), gives birth to new sub-genres ("Deadliest Catch" brought a more documentary approach), and delivers ratings and entertainment even from older shows (such as "Survivor," which remains a top-20 show and just came off its best season yet.

But some are stale and ready for retirement — or at the very least, need to be re-imagined. Five of the worst offenders:

"The Amazing Race"
For a long time, when someone would ask what my favorite reality show was, I'd say "The Amazing Race." It was unequivocally superior to most other shows, with its simple but distinct combination of a travelogue, adventure series, and reality competition. Host Phil Keoghan's wry comments, the spectacular locations, the inevitable cultural clashes — never mind personality conflicts between the teams of two people who already knew each other — all contributed to a show that won a well-deserved Emmy.

But the Emmys it has won since then seem gratuitous. That's because, sometime after the wretched family season, which largely stayed confined to the United States, the show started to get predictable. The cast members blend together from season to season, as do the spectacular locations. Perhaps most frustrating is the editing, which works too hard to maintain a breakneck speed and never-ending tension, but is increasingly just annoying.

It's time for the "Race" to reinvent itself, perhaps by softening and slowing the editing, or perhaps by doing something more dramatic, like changing up the team structure (Teams of three? People who don't know each other?). At the very least, as it has already started to do, CBS needs to pull back and air just one season a year, so the show seems special, not like a never-ending sprint to nowhere.

"The Real World"
MTV apparently keeps "The Real World" on the air only to give people in their 30s something to be nostalgic about, or to give them a reason to say, "In my day..." While the show has younger viewers, that new generation is more compelled by the cast of "The Hills" and Tila Tequila than the drunks on "Real World," so why bother? The days of Puck and Pedro, Irene and Stephen, and even Ruthie are long gone.

Some viewers have found the current Hollywood-set season to be a bit more of a return to the show's roots than other recent seasons. But the now-relentless focus on drinking and hooking up, never mind the way "The Real World"'s self-selecting cast lack pre-existing lives and jobs, seems impossible to avoid, so it's time to retire reality TV's grandparent for good.

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