You've got to be kidneying
So you can't sell a kidney on eBay, but you can offer one as a prize on the telly.
Dutch TV channel BNN is screening The Big Donor Show this weekend.
Rather than a show about large kebabs, it's a live high stakes reality programme where three kidney patients will compete to receive a new organ from the terminally ill, 37-year-old "Lisa".
The supposed aim of the show is to raise awareness of organ donation, but given BNN's track record in reality TV you have to doubt the company's sincerity.
The company is responsible for Shooting and Swallowing (about drug use) and This is how we Screw (oddly enough not a DIY show) both of which make their flagship show Big Brother look rather classy by comparison.
While the other shows just sound creepy and pervy at least they don't pose the judges and viewers the type of moral dilemma Big Donor does.
You see viewers participate in the decision by sending text messages to Lisa during the 80 minutes that it is on air.
It's all very well for the lucky winner, but when you're voted off this show you're really voted off.
I'm curious how viewers get to decide who gets a new lease of life and who gets to take their chances on the hospital waiting list.
Will they be dragging their portable dialysis units over obstacle courses a la Survivor or will they be hanging about in a house Big Bro style, trying to out wacky each other in an attempt to curry favour.
Anyway, if the show catches on I can see the celebrity variants.
After all there's a number of famous-for-being types and heroes of yesteryear lurking around the fringes of the limelight that are in dire need of personality transplants.
Now there's an issue that needs to be brought to the public's attention.
Dutch TV channel BNN is screening The Big Donor Show this weekend.
Rather than a show about large kebabs, it's a live high stakes reality programme where three kidney patients will compete to receive a new organ from the terminally ill, 37-year-old "Lisa".
The supposed aim of the show is to raise awareness of organ donation, but given BNN's track record in reality TV you have to doubt the company's sincerity.
The company is responsible for Shooting and Swallowing (about drug use) and This is how we Screw (oddly enough not a DIY show) both of which make their flagship show Big Brother look rather classy by comparison.
While the other shows just sound creepy and pervy at least they don't pose the judges and viewers the type of moral dilemma Big Donor does.
You see viewers participate in the decision by sending text messages to Lisa during the 80 minutes that it is on air.
It's all very well for the lucky winner, but when you're voted off this show you're really voted off.
I'm curious how viewers get to decide who gets a new lease of life and who gets to take their chances on the hospital waiting list.
Will they be dragging their portable dialysis units over obstacle courses a la Survivor or will they be hanging about in a house Big Bro style, trying to out wacky each other in an attempt to curry favour.
Anyway, if the show catches on I can see the celebrity variants.
After all there's a number of famous-for-being types and heroes of yesteryear lurking around the fringes of the limelight that are in dire need of personality transplants.
Now there's an issue that needs to be brought to the public's attention.