9. Mountain Men
The History Channel does a great job of advertising ‘Mountain Men’ with beautifully shot and edited promos that keep people coming back for more time and time again. One thing the promos have in common with the actual show is an excessive exaggeration. Some of the castmates have admitted to being asked to overstate their personalities, effectively being someone they absolutely aren’t in real life. The cast is also far more well off than the storyline allows them to divulge and a lot of the “serious” incidents are set up in advance, with cast reactions being filmed days or weeks later. A close call with wolves? Nope, just a few interesting shots with everyday dogs.
10. Designed to Sell
‘Designed To Sell’ might not be a favorite home of home renovation enthusiasts in comparison to other shows like ‘Extreme Makeover’, and perhaps this has something to do with the overly fake premise of the program itself. HGTV is happy to stage fake open houses to get the shots they need, even inviting friends and family to act as fillers if they need people at the last minute. Better yet, a lot of them are asked to pretend to be interested buyers. If you can look past this, you might be stopped dead in your tracks when hearing that they shoot multiple endings for each episode, so the producers can decide how it all pieces together in the greater scheme of the episodes within the given season. Does it get more fake than this on primetime television?