It’s a bit hard to watch Storage Wars and accept it as a competition reality television show. Why? Because it’s just so ridiculously staged that accepting any of its premises as “reality” is difficult even without the many lawsuits fired at the show for staging its “reality.”
The show has a simple premise, if you can call it that. A group of bidders compete to own the stuff that people have abandoned in storage units. From there they go through their winnings, see if there’s anything worthwhile and have it appraised for potentially “large sums of money” from various experts. It has an interesting premise and as a legitimate show it could make for something enlightening.
Unfortunately the show is as scripted as Entourage and nowhere as interesting.
While they don’t say it, and there’s no real way to prove it, the show is so contrived that it can’t possibly be real. This is a show that looks like amateur actors doing recreations poorly instead of awkward people who have no clue how to be themselves on camera for any length of time. The show looks fake in a way that even most A&E programming can’t shake; it looks like a gussied up amateur production as opposed to a true reality show. It’s a feeling you can’t shake while watching it; this just looks so fake that it actually being real is a surprise.
I couldn’t believe it and the lawsuits against the show tend to throw water on notions of reality and muddy it up. Is it a true reality show or a staged show with reality elements? We don’t know and ultimately it’s the one thing about the show that makes it almost laughable.
There’s 40 minutes of Behind the Scenes footage.
A&E presents Storage Wars (Volume 4). Running time: 368 minutes. Not Rated. Released: February 12, 2013. Available at Amazon.com.
