If you thought that her multi-billion dollar empire allowed Oprah Winfrey to rest on her laurels you’d be wrong. The queen of daytime talk is preparing to venture into a new genre of television—reality TV.
Apparently, the reality of a daytime talk show is not enough for the media maven–Oprah is coming to primetime. According to “Variety,” Winfrey says she’s going to produce two series that’ll air in prime time on ABC. But don’t look for the “anti-Jerry Springer” talk show host to be backing projects ala MTV’s “Real World” or NBC’s “Fear Factor.” The magazine says Winfrey’s shows won’t be targeting audiences who enjoy “the gross factor;” rather the talk show host/activist/philantropist’s new shows will focus on “wish fulfillment and making lives better.”
The first program is called “Oprah Winfrey’s The Big Give.” According to producers the series provides money and other resources to 10 people and challenges them to help others in a way that tests the players’ ingenuity and passion.
The second show has a working title of “Your Money or Your Life.” The premise is similar to ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” and features families who are confronted by a crisis and must change or risk being “consumed by disaster.”
Whatever happened to Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker? Tammy Faye is gravely ill from cancer, and Jim is remarried and has a new TV ministry. The rift between the two former televangelists is huge—which in itself makes for a great made-for-TV-movie, but add their tattooed, multi-pierced, preacher son into the mix and you have the basis for an even juicer plot line and a new reality series called “One Punk Under God: the Prodigal Son of Jim and Tammy Faye.”
Jay Bakker, who initially rebelled after the much-publicized fall of his televangelist parents, is now a minister himself and the star of the new reality series. The show, which airs Wednesday evenings on the Sundance Channel, is about the church he calls Revolution, which holds services in an Atlanta bar (never mind that Jay is a recovering alcoholic).
It’s just one of the crosses Jay Bakker says he has had to bear over the years. He willing admits that he spent his teen years self-destructing on alcohol and drugs after his parents’ “Praise the Lord” empire collapsed in scandal and his father went to jail for fraud. But this new show is about reformation and concentrates on how Bakker preaches God’s grace to a flock of fellow punks. The show also follows Bakker as he tries to repair the rift between his parents.
What do you think? Will you tune into any of the aforementioned shows?
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