Rules are made to be broken...

Is Reality TV real or just scripted non sense?

Hello all... I have another back stage story for you. This one has to do with the ever so popular competition reality show. You know like Top Chef or Americas Next Top Model... two shows I haven't worked on. I did work on this one design show where on one episode the designers were given an allotted amount of time to construct and design a bedroom from scratch. They were given a strict budget and the use of only specific tools and were only allowed to go to certain show approved stores (stores that where sponsors of the show). These were all the "rules" or "guidelines" of the challenge, whats a challenge if its not monitored in some way right? Well in reality, rules are made to be broken. All the challengers had to do was put up a little bit of a fight before they started getting their way. They got a significant amount added to what was supposed to be a minimal stringent  budget, they actually only went shopping at one of the approved stores and did a large amount of their shopping at non approved ones instead... in essence making my life harder because no one was pre image released. They also bought tools and materials from these non sanctioned stores that they originally were not supposed to use. What really shocked me was that after time was up, and the challenge was supposed to be over, no one had finished, and the producers ended up giving them all more time. The main point of the challenge was that it was time/deadline oriented and to just give the contestants more time is inconceivable to me. It also sucked because a normal 12 hour day became a 16 hour one.

The really funny part was that later on once the season aired I watched the episode on TV and saw that the editor skillfully snuck in a few B-roll shots of the exteriors of some of the stores that they were supposed to go to but didn't in that particular episode, to make it seem as if they did. They also completely edited out anything that was shot during the initial deadline and only kept in that of which made the story line seem as if they all finished on time, which being there I know they did not. My question is if your going to be a show based on challenges, why make it easier for all the contestants to succeed in the challenge if your just going to allow them to break the rules? Doesn't that cancel out the idea that the winner is  winning the challenge fair and square? This is another example of how Reality TV pulls the wool over our eyes and what we see is not always what actually happened.