With a new series of The Apprentice currenly being broadcast on BBC 1, I thought I'd have a quick look at the creator's chart, Mark Burnett.

He was born in the UK but has dual UK-USA citizenship, and his television career is mainly in the USA. Over there he's been described as the 'king of the genre', reflecting his success with 'reality television' series that have contests and competitions built into them. He took Survivor from the UK to the USA, created The Apprentice, The Restaurant, The Casino, Rock Star, Combat Missions, The Contender, and Are You Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader? and has won two Emmy awards.

The main feature of the reality television genre he works in is the combination of contest plus expulsion of the loser. It has indeed become a genre in itself in various countries, not just the UK and USA. It reflects his Sun and Mercury closely conjunct in Cancer and both are novile Pluto. Cancer is the sign of knitting together the family group - aka tribe, or kith and kin - and of the basic human fear of rejection and abandonment. Cancer is one of the signs of childhood, and the parent-child relationship which is to provide an inclusive environment for the child safe from exclusion, because exclusion for the child means peril and probable death. Talking about this, Mark has said:

"Both "The Apprentice" and "Survivor" have something in common, which is dealing with the emotional pull that all humans feel from being excluded from something. That's done through either being voted off, in the case of "Survivor," or being fired in "Apprentice." It's something that's akin to not being invited to the party, like being the last person chosen in (the) schoolyard for a sports team. Even the feeling at a party that people don't really want you there. Those are emotional connections which are common to every person unless you just have no awareness. A lot of my stuff is based on (mythology scholar) Joseph Campbell's books, (i.e.) "The Power of Myth," "The Hero With a Thousand Faces." I'm a huge fan of Joseph Campbell. Both of those shows take that feeling of exclusion to a level of death. When you're fired, or in the case of "Survivor," when the torch goes out, it's like being killed. In "Survivor," we go to the audacity of blue lighting on a long pathway. You're disappearing into the blue light (when castaways are voted off the show). These are the emotional hooks the audience relates to."

Asked "How much of the drama in "Survivor" and "Apprentice" is created in the edit?" Mark replied:

"We create situations. This is clearly contrived situations creating genuine emotions. Because were I to wait for 16 people to happen to be shipwrecked, I'd be waiting a long time to do a show. What is very real is this feeling of exclusion from the group. It's so real. We've all thought about this stuff since we were children. It's dealing with those raw, connected emotional hooks that Joseph Campbell talks about in his books, be it the journey of a hero, unwitting or otherwise, or the sense of death and rebirth in "Survivor." (After) someone is voted off each week, typically the lighting comes back to orange-y from blue, and (host) Jeff (Probst) will say, "We'll see you tomorrow." The tribe is living on. It's death and rebirth. That's totally what I'm operating off of, those belief systems. ... Not to put anybody down, but some shows are simply done for the shock value. "Littlest Groom" is not something you're going to watch again. I've tried to build franchises that would become kind of a living thing."

Reference: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000518943