Good Reality TV?

I dated a guy in high school who knew he was smarter/more sophisticated/generally better than everyone else.  This attitude came up frequently with his parents, especially his mom, who *gasp* enjoyed reality TV shows.

I'll admit that I can be a bit of a reality TV junkie as well.  I avoid Big Brother and Survivor on principal, but it's the rare episode of The Biggest Loser that doesn't make me cry.  And home improvement shows (Property Brothers, Love It or List It, Design Star) - let's just say I'm going to have some very high expectations in the coming decade.

No one, and I mean NO ONE has ever really complimented reality TV on anything; it's a very warped version of "reality," they (generally) have little educational value, and as Jersey Shore taught us, they make superstars out of people who honestly just need to melt back into the primordial ooze and please don't reproduce any farther.

But is there such a thing as good reality TV?  I personally love finding new exercises on Biggest Loser, and those design shows make me drool, but there's more to it than that.  Lately, I've been watching a show called Surviving the Cut on Netflix.  The show is an exploration of the U.S. military's most rigorous training courses and follow classes of Special Forces wannabes as they get mentally and physically torn apart to prepare for the toughest jobs any of us regular humans can imagine.

So let's think about this: it's a series that shows selected, dramatic excerpts of a typical day in the lives of a specific group of people competing to win a coveted rank - reality TV in a nutshell.  And yet, somehow, it seems different.  Is it because the series comes from the Discovery Channel?  Is it because the participants are good, selfless people?  Or is it just that most of us wouldn't deign to call the U.S. military "useless entertainment"?

Your call.