Extreme Fakeover: Home Edition

I had a little taste of TV yesterday, when I met Ty Pennington from "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition". I was at LCC, where he and his crew were to show up and film for a "spot" on the show. Lately, the Extreme Makeover crew has been hanging out in the Lansing area, building a house for a Holt family who lost their husband and father to Hepetitis C.
I was on time to the filming, and Ty was late: an hour and a half late, to be exact. 150 students and staff waited on cold concrete benches in the ampitheater, waiting for the event to begin. After a while, anxiety was building, but not around the excitement of seeing Ty. People were just plain bored. The result of this was that, when Pennington finally did show up, people were unable to keep still. They simply wanted to take a picture, shake a hand if possible, and leave. However, this was not a possibility. The camera crew and director insisted on keeping the crowd for an hour, filming the shoot twice, and then several parts of it over again. I found it quite interesting that this is called "reality tv" when it's obviously so scripted and put together. Every step, every smile, every handshake is scripted and timed. I even found myself wondering if Ty's "compassion" is real.
I can hardly wait to watch the episode (which should air in November), to see if I made it onto the show. However, I know that if I did, it will be a simple 3-second crowd shot, and I will have to tape and re-wind it 12 times to actually find myself on the screen. Maybe, though, I'll get my 1 and a half seconds of fame after all.
"Reality TV"? TV, yes. Reality, I think not.