With the announcement of WE tv’s “Sex Box” (a reality show where couples have sex in some sort of box–like structure then talk about it with a panel of judges afterwards), it’s officially time to address “Naked TV” as a trend. The fad's spawned tons of shows, all with one thing in common: if you want to be a contestant, you have to be naked. Oh, and a whole lot of ass cheeks.
But the thing is, despite the sheer volume of nudity among these shows, none of their content really makes for compelling television.
Discovery's “Naked and Afraid” is the weakest I've seen, where being naked really only matters because it's slightly harder to survive nude in jungles and deserts. It’s like watching a less dramatic version of “Survivor” with more pixels. The beginning of each episode typically features bland monologues about contestants either being confident in their nakedness or confident in their survival skills. Apparently, they're mutually exclusive.
“Dating Naked” comes in second for pointless nudity. The only difference between “Dating Naked” and something like MTV's “Next” is that mutual nakedness triples the amount of awkward giggles to which viewers are subjected. The conversations aren’t that much more interesting, because you can basically tell if someone’s hot or not regardless of whether they’re dressed. A guy figuring out if he wants to date the hot chick or the one with whom he actually had an emotional connection is nothing new to reality dating shows.
“Buying Naked” is the only installment of the naked TV trend that might be interesting, because it’s the only one about actual nudists. The show follows around a real estate agent named Jackie Youngblood (apparently that’s her real name) as she sells houses to residents of “The Nudist Capital of the World,” Pasco County, Florida. But even this show doesn’t offer any real insight into nudist colonies, as it focuses more on the plight of the clothed realtor and her team of metrosexual young male associates. Clips of "Buying Naked" show nudists shaking hands instead of hugging and placing objects in front of their naughty bits the way naked scenes are shot in sitcoms.
More honest titles for these shows would be: “Afraid for 21 Days,” “Dating” and “Buying Houses” and, honestly, that's nothing special. Cover up, naked TV. No one wants to see that.
