Elizabeth Joyce: The reality is, it's still the telly we love to hate

, we scoff.

.

Well, as much as we try and paper over the cracks, as much as we try and fight it, reality TV is far from dead.

Just look at the boobs-out-trout-pout carnival of madness on the other side of this page (if you're reading this online, simply imagine lots of boobies and cheap hair extensions on 20-something Essex girls. Although, if you are reading this online, you've probably already got something similar going on in another window. Saucy).

The Only Way Is Essex, despite having hardly any of its original cast members and exhausting every single storyline and scenario a good two years ago, is back yet again and still gets more than 1.2 million people tuning in every week.

Ditto Made in Chelsea. Unbelievably, the sob stories of the McVities heir and some bird called Binky has just wrapped its seventh series, bagging its highest-ever ratings in the process (just shy of one million).

Mummy! Why don't you like my badly-quiffed, pinky-ring-wearing toff of a boyfriend? All he did was cheat on me six times and have an orgy with one of best friends. It's, like, so unfair, yah?!

Remarkably, this was an actual storyline in MiC. Cray.

Then there's the zombie of reality TV: Big Brother. We thought we'd killed it, we thought the evil was over; but, no, it's dragged itself from the grave and is now running round madder than ever, blood spurting from the eyeballs, expletives roaring from the mouth.

Here's my favourite sentence from this latest series: "Have a wash and use a hair brush, you fat b**ch."

Charming.

So why, despite our better judgement, and for all our self-righteous moaning about the state of reality television, do we keep tuning in?

Ever since the original series of Big Brother, where the most exciting thing that happened was a man secretly writing down people's names on scraps of paper, things have gotten wilder, more OTT and, let's face it, pretty darn scummy. Kinga with the bottle? Nicole and her "special talent" on The Valleys? Need I say more?

The only conclusion therefore is that it's the ol' car crash thing: that we enjoy lording it up over others, that we get some weird kick watching other people's lives go off like a bottle of pop.

I ended up watching three hours of the new Lindsay Lohan show the other day for example. This Oprah-funded, now-cancelled tragedy of a TV show followed the "actress" in her chaotic life of sleeping until 4pm, arguing with her slimeball dad, bossing around her slave of an assistant and keeping every single person who tried to reach out and help her waiting for hours on end.

It was depressing, shocking and blood-boiling in equal measure.

But, more than that, it had that oh-my-god-I-can't-look-but-must-watch quality all the best/worst reality shows have.

And that's the secret to their longevity: that dark addiction. Because, when reality bites, it doesn't let go.