Playing with Fire, the new reality show which started on Sunday night on E! Entertainment (DStv 124) at 21:00, is shocking in its disgusting filthy language which Universal Networks International (UNI) is pumping through the airwaves to South African viewers on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform.
The crass filfthy language which UNI and E! Entertainment seems to want to normalise with Playing with Fire makes it even more ironic given that UNI censors brand names, products and other media outlets' names like magazines from its news show E! News by bleeping and blurring out actual real references and contextual information within a news programme.
While E! Entertainment is supposed to bring the news as it is and bleep the filfth coming out of its so-called reality stars' mouths, Universal Networks does the opposite on DStv. Playing with Fire's filth is "allowed" to be broadcast unvarnished which is incredibly off putting. Talk about trashing your brand image with gutter language.
If you're a TV executive involved with Playing with Fire, show it to your mother and make her watch it in the way normal DStv subscribers have to, and then ask her afterwards if she's proud of you.
Playing with Fire warns upfront that the new reality show - a Million Dollar Listing New York type show following culinary people in New York's food world - "contains strong language throughout". But no normal viewer could possibly have expected what follows.
Within the first 2 minutes, E! Entertainment viewers on DStv are bombarded in Playing with Fire with cussing and words like "f-" (3 times), "s-t" (twice), "d-k" and women called "b-" (3 times). And that's just the intro's 2 minutes before the title sequence has even started. Talk about low-rent trash television.
For all the fake flash which the brothers Daniel and Derek Koch display, they actually show who they really are instantly in Playing with Fire.
Real successful people don't lace their language with expletives. Professional people who have made it in the world have a certain modicum of not just manners but a public image - which doesn't include the "f-" word in almost every sentence. Do they think they're Gordon Ramsay?
The middle finger being shown and unpalatable talk such as "t-", "vagina", "d-k measuring contest", "show my t-" and "left ball sack missing" makes Playing with Fire - at least the introductory first episode - a major letdown and turn-off. As in "turn my television off" or to another channel other than E! Entertainment.
It's grating to be constantly subjected to juvenile language from immature adults in this reality show and it's too much if you have lots of other television choices and too little time.
Whatever the rest of the first season will be, this TV critic won't know since I won't be wasting time watching this trash again. Your first episode of a TV show is suppose to invite your viewer back for more or a main course. After a few awful bites I've definitely had enough of this raw, indigestible reality entree.
I thought I was going to watch a cool new reality show set in New York but Playing with Fire won't see me watching it again. It's abrasive, lowbrow terrible TV trash which needs to go away, not be on E! Entertainment or any television and which is something I won't be wasting my time with again.
Gladly skip this culinary crassness and wait for the new seasons of Come Dine with Me South Africa on BBC Entertainment and MasterChef South Africa on M-Net which both respect their TV audience.
