What? Another Realiti TV show?

Realiti is a new fictional drama set in the world of reality television. It will be on air on 8TV 'sometime' this year, which may mean anywhere between May and August 2006. The series will star Azizan Nin, Ashraf Sinclair, Alvin Wong, Chelsia Ng and Melissa Maureen. As you might guess, each character is distinct from one another: You have a melayu rocker, an urban bad boy, a glamour diva, an opportunistic vixen and a talented girl-next-door. Of course, the reality is that nobody is quite who they seem.

It's something that has been in the works since the middle of last year, but I'm fine writing about this now because 8TV has already announced it in their "shows to watch this year" presentation event. (Normally I don't like talking about shows that haven't been confirmed yet. Doing things like that has this whole jinxy feel about it.)

(By the way, I wrote two and two-half episodes for it, which is why I'm blogging about it.)

Shooting has just begun last week and what I've seen so far looks interesting. I think Ping Ho (one of the producers) wants this to stand out a little in terms of writing (can you say 'tri-lingual dialogue'?) and cinematography (for example, more continuous hand-held shots).

Those of you who were at the Channel 8/Media Prima preview probably saw a demo pilot for the show. And you will probably notice some differences between that pilot and what I'm describing here.

For a start there were originally six main characters who have now be pruned to five. Those Cheryl Samad fans out there will just have to wait for a second season of Realiti (ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease) for her to make an appearance. For some bizarre reason, she'd rather go traipsing around Australia than get stuck shooting on an abandoned floor in an old building in KL. Go figure.

And Ashraf Sinclair takes time off wooing the ladies of Gol and Gincu to take Awal Ashari's place. Yes, yes, it's still eye candy for the girls. Not that I understand it at all.

I'm also happy to work with Azizan, Melissa and Alvin again (since I write first and then they complain about my writing later, it's a quantumesque working-at-a-distance type of deal where I just hide my face when necessary). After all, Table for Two will always hold a special place in my heart and my CV, so anything to do with that group rocks for me.

Chelsia rounds off the cast, and since the show is about a singing talent show, and she can sing (and boy, she can sing), it's a good fit. Being good-looking enough to finish third runner-up in the Miss Malaysia/ World pageant (in 2003, for those who care) doesn't hurt either.

There are other supporting cast, of course, but I'll write about them later.

Labels: realiti, tv