Reality hits day TV in 'Starting Over'

By Lynn Elber
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — A half-dozen women gather in a house to help each other improve their lives, while being filmed for television.

What sounds like a friendlier, feminist version of "Big Brother" ("Big Sisterhood"?) may be even more groundbreaking. The new syndicated series "Starting Over" promises to fuse reality TV with the daytime soap opera.

It also uses the concept of life coaches, individuals hired to guide people toward personal or professional fulfillment.

"Starting Over" premieres at 10 a.m. Monday (on KITV in Hawai'i). It comes from the producers of MTV's "Real World," who a decade ago pioneered the idea of making entertainment out of juiced-up everyday life.

As the reality craze grew, Bunim-Murray Productions repeatedly was approached about bringing a version of "Real World" to daytime television, Jonathan Murray said.

He and Mary-Ellis Bunim thought it would be impossible to create a consistently engaging reality series on a daily, rather than weekly, basis. But the staleness of daytime TV kept the idea alive, Murray said.

"We were discussing it a couple years ago, and said the same old stuff is happening in daytime — soap operas, game shows and talk shows." He and Bunim also realized they had encountered a number of women dissatisfied with their lives.

"They had taken a path they weren't happy with, and wanted a chance to start over, but financial or other reasons keep them from doing it," Murray said.

Enter the life coach, a concept that Murray concedes may be foreign to many viewers but that made "Starting Over" possible by giving structure to the women's lives and advancing their stories.

Coaches were picked instead of therapists because "Starting Over" wanted "to take the women forward" rather than examine their pasts.

A pair of gurus play roles: Rhonda Britten, according to her biography, is founder of the Fearless Living Institute, host of a British TV program called "Help Me Rhonda" and an author whose books include "Fearless Living: Live Without Excuses and Love Without Regret."

Her fellow coach is Rana Walker, who studied psychology, holds a master's degree and co-founded the Diamond Cutter company to help businesses and individuals get, among other things, "the most out of life."

Britten and Walker guide the residents of the "Starting Over" house in Chicago toward fulfilling goals such as weight loss and career improvement. One young widow seeks help accepting her loss.

The women in the first group, who auditioned to be part of the show, range from 20 to 62 years old and come from states including New York, Texas and Illinois.