Resist Fox's Temptation

TV viewers have a new option on prime time television tomorrow night, but it's up to each individual watcher to resist the curiosity and forget Temptation.

A new generation of reality television has hit the airwaves not in documentary form, but as a setup that decreases the already declining quality of prime time television.

The show is called Temptation Island, and the name says it all.

The story line is this: Four unmarried couples "at a crossroads in their relationship" are planted on an island with 26 beautiful singles "looking for love," according to the Fox Web site (http://www.fox.com).

But it gets worse. The couples are then set up on dates with each other to see if their love will last and if they are indeed with their perfect mate.

No big money, no big prize.

The only reward is that the players either don't break up, or they find the new loves of their lives, thereby dumping their previous mates.

The recent craze of reality TV started with the CBS show **Survivor**, which premiered in spring 2000. The situation went like this: 16 people were chosen to spend 39 days on Pulau Tiga, an uninhabited island off Borneo. They would endure challenges and the elements of nature, and in 13 one-hour episodes, the members would vote each person off the island. The final "survivor" won $1 million.

What a waste — an absolutely degrading way to show people interacting, everyone too afraid to do or say anything to anyone lest they be booted off the island and lose the $1 million.

But the garbage did not end there.

**Big Brother**, another CBS show that aired about the same time, put 10 strangers in a house together and monitored their lives 24 hours a day for three months. The person who could last the longest won $500,000.

And now Fox has jumped on the bandwagon with its new show Temptation Island.

The problem is the whole premise of reality TV. This isn't a soap opera or a sitcom such as Friends, where viewers know everything is scripted and created for entertainment value. Traditional shows aren’t reality-based programs, and everyone knows it.

Temptation Island involves putting real people in ridiculous, artificial situations and then airing them on national television.

The funny thing is, this isn't reality. No one goes to a tropical island with three other couples to find 26 single people tempting him to cheat on his mate.

If people want reality, they should take a look at their own lives.

The divorce rate in the country already is high. We shouldn't be endorsing a television show based on infidelity.

The idea of being so involved in someone else's personal life is voyeuristic, sick and demented.

But there's another problem. No matter how sick and twisted the idea is, millions of Americans still are going to have the urge to tune in Wednesday at 9 p.m. and watch the debauchery unfold.

Stop. Resist. Don't do it.

Getting this trash off the air (or at least off prime time) has to start at home.

And a word to Fox: Just because something sells, doesn’t mean you have to sell it.

Just say no to Temptation Island.

No more test-tube Bessies

Scientists may have found a method of survival for endangered species in the laboratory, but their answer doesn’t solve all the problems.

In Worcester, Mass., scientists are expecting the birth of the first cloned endangered species, a wild ox called a gaur. Scientists hollowed out a cow's egg cell and filled it with the nucleus of a gaur’s skin cell.

While protecting endangered species is obviously a good idea, it should be conducted through breeding, not through cloning.

It makes no sense to clone animals when we cannot maintain the habitat in which they live. More money should be spent on breeding animals naturally and improving the quality of their lives.

Cloning also has the potential to get out of control. The idea of frozen zoos, cells stored for future use, is frightening. What’s next? Scientists just store frozen cells of endangered species until they are all dead? That’s no way to protect our animals.

Researchers also have to consider how they plan to keep these cloned animals alive, because when they were born naturally, the animals were not able to survive.

The human race is responsible for the extinction of many of these animals. We now should concentrate on keeping what we still have alive – through nature, not through cloning.