There’s a whole lot of new reality programming headed down the pipeline on Oxygen. They’ve given the greenlight to five new series, and have also placed another three in development. It’s a 50% increase for the network in original programming, all of it unscripted and all of it aimed at the young, female demographic.
Given the go-ahead, according to Deadline are 5 unscripted series, two of which are the same show, just on different coasts. Girlfriend Confidential: LA and Girlfriend Confidential: NY both follow a group of female friends, all of whom are beautiful, successful, and facing different challenges in their lives. Because what we really need is another show about the trials and tribulations of the rich and gorgeous. Don’t the Kardashians have a corner on that market?
The remaining three series given the greenlight are I’m Having Their Baby, The Next Big Thing: NY, and My Shopping Addiction. The first of these sounds like it would be about surrogates, but is in fact about women preparing to give up a baby for adoption. The Next Big Thing: NY stars NYC musical director and performance coach Trapper Felides as he mentors a group of performers with his tough love approach. Finally, we have My Shopping Addiction, a series that will take a close look at people who take retail therapy to a whole new level.
Put in development are three new projects as well; there’s a talent competition of sorts, a dating show, and a play on Punk’d. First up is #VideoStar which pulls self-made internet videos of performers from the web and pits them against each other for a chance to win a real music video opportunity with The Glee Project’s Erik White. Longest.Date.Ever will set up two women per episode on a date that lasts an entire week; putting scientifically matched couples together in the hopes that the longest date in history helps them find love. And finally, we have Propos’d, which takes the prank-on-camera concept and ends with a proposal. Men will play crazy pranks on their girlfriends who have been rooting around for a proposal, and then give them what they want at the end: the ring.
There isn’t much in the way of new concepts here, although it might be interesting to see how many potential brides slap their boyfriends and walk rather than taking the ring. But as far as the rest, it looks like a whole lot of the same old reality thing.
