Having flirted with media studies during my education I can confirm that a lot of shows like this are staged (as you can tell I learnt SOOO much

). However also like similar shows the audience (us and others) can also gain and be thoroughly enterteined throughout. For example material and approaches throughout the show have been taught or influenced at least by Mystery. From this we can either borrow some canned material or see the patterns in the evolution of the "contestants" and then from this make our own systems and routines that work for us. Ultimately its win-win, the shnow gets high audiences we get the smug feeling that we didnt completely waste our time watching another reality show, such as.....dare I say it.......Big Brother

oooow I shiver in pain.
Spark.