UnREAL

This show is incredible. The writing, acting, direction, all excellent. And how timely, with the fascination of all things "real", which is to say, of course, not close to real at all. The manipulation of the lead characters is stunning in it's depravity. As a friend who's watched it said, "this is on Lifetime?" I'm no fan of reality TV and this skewers it to the wall, warts and all. I have a suspicion that there's a good bit of truth behind this show, from the story lines, the "girls" and the "bachelor" and the crew. It's equally entertaining and frightening. Saw all four currently out in sequence, but each one is great. Sometimes brutal, the well-acted psychosis of the main characters is worth the watch.

Let me get this straight before I begin: unReal is disturbing and sickening and hard to watch. But that is the aim of this show.

It centers around a fictional reality dating show called "Everlasting". The show may start out slow, but by the second episode, it sinks its teeth in.

The main character, Rachel, is suffering from some sort of mental disease. It seems like she is bipolar. The show's manager, Quinn, is a complete control freak while Rachel, Shia and Jay manipulate the bachelorettes, Quinn is really the one doing the manipulating.

I like to think that this show is very similar to house of cards, and like house of cards, it seems realistic in a very strange way. I have no doubt that a lot of this stuff really goes on behind the scenes of these sorts of shows, and that is what unReal does best. The scenes that it spends showing how the handlers manipulate fights, arguments and who is eliminated really hits home hard.

9/10

Okay, so I must admit I started doubtful. The subject matter was turning me off (boy, do I *hate* "bully TV"), and lifetime... well, let's say I was envisioning the worst in TV.

But I saw good reviews, took a careful plunge, and wow. This is truly THE best show this year.

The characters are meaty, with thick back stories and deep, intricate personalities and relationships. Great cast - Appleby and Zimmer make a dynamite duo.

It's kinda like the anti "Newsroom", and still, almost as good :)

Really recommend it.

As a 33 year old male, Lifetime isn't where I tend to look for my programming but I actually like this show.

The cruel way that the 'actors' are manipulated is very believable.

My favorite is the boss, Constance Zimmer plays a powerful bitch beautifully.

This show is everything I generally don't like: a sequential drama with romantic subplots (and even the main-plot, kinda). But I ended up really liking it so maybe give it a try if the premise is interesting to you. Give it two episodes, if you aren't interested after that then you can probably safely pass on the rest of the season.

It's trashy, nasty, camp and the show is littered with despicable narcissistic individuals. UnREAL is one of my guilty pleasures, you could stop at season one but chances are you'll want to binge all Four seasons.

Season 4 is arguably the weakest season, i would have been happy with three. Graham saying "it was probably too painful to say goodbye to me" was probably my fav line whole season.

Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman was really rocking it 3 & 4, Shiri Appleby -extraordinary, and Constance Zimmer -always great.

Loved it.