I have an idea for a reality TV show but before I tell you about it, you have to buy into the idea that the only ‘reality’ in Reality TV is in the genre name. It’s all scripted and rehearsed to *look* spontaneous and off-the-cuff. We good? Great. Here’s my idea:
A team of hair stylists (with support personnel) cruise around in a Winnebago that’s been outfitted as a hair salon. When they spot a woman (let’s call her Bernice) with a really awful haircut (camera zooms and freeze-frames like a Predator Drone locking onto a target), a couple guys leap out, grab the woman and pull her into Winnebago where she’s strapped into a salon chair and handed a Mimosa.
The Coif Commandos (working title) leap into action as the Winnebago goes careening through traffic. A quick shampoo and the colorist transforms that mousy mop from dryer lint brown to a color better suited to the woman’s skin tone. Then the stylist snips and clips and gives her a cut that’s right for her face (and age). The clock is running and so are the commandos. They drop the freshly made over madam in front of Nordstrom’s and squeal away.
(commercial break)
We next see Bernice talking to the cops at the local precinct, describing her horrific experience.
Detective: And you say they didn’t actually harm you?
Bernice: Yes they harmed me! Look at my hair!!
Detective: (glancing at his partner) Uh, it looks pretty good to me. What did it look like before?
(cut to line-up room where the Commandos are under the lights. Some opportunity to go for cheap gay vamping laughs here.)
Bernice: That’s them!
As we segue into the next commercial break we watch a montage of Bernice’s friends and co-workers trying to be tactful as they talk about how much better she looks with her new coif.
(commercial break)
The courtroom scene consists of bitchy but hilarious testimony by the Commandos (“I’m sorry, but bangs at her age? No, no, no.”) and a series of before-and-after images. Don’t really have a good ending because the series depends on an acquittal in every episode.
I think this might be the result of a flashback from the 2003 series on Bravo, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. And my deep conviction that I could improve on most haircuts with a pair of garden shears.
Feel free to run with this pitch as your own. If you get picked up, send me a tee-shirt.