AMC to start making reality shows—but, you know, better

By Sean O'Neal | April 15, 2011 | 6:45pm

Aux Features TV

Seeing as AMC’s executives are likely swaggering around wielding pimp sticks made of Emmys thanks to the success of their scripted series, it’s no surprise to hear that the network is now considering branching out into unscripted shows—or that they’re approaching them with the exact same cockiness. Deadline reports that AMC has ordered both Inside The DHS and The Pitch, two shows from Dirty Jobs producer Craig Piligian and Undercover Boss producers Eli Holzman and Stephen Lambert, respectively, that AMC executives take pains to describe as “docu-stories,” thereby differentiating them from the boilerplate reality shows pumped out by lesser, plebeian networks. Inside The DHS will look at the day-to-day workings of the Department Of Homeland Security and all the fun, national panic-creating stuff they do there, while The Pitch will follow various top ad agencies as they prepare campaigns to convince corporations to give them their accounts.

Despite the similarities, AMC’s senior VP Joel Stillerman insists that The Pitch’s similarity to Mad Men had nothing whatsoever to do with their interest in the show, saying their vision for unscripted shows is “similar to what we do in scripted: let's start with where the best stories are. Where are the places that we find worlds that are inherently dramatic and culturally relevant?” Stillerman added that they believe taking on reality programming gives them “an opportunity for us to redefine how it's done.” Mad Men may have had nothing to do with them ordering The Pitch, but it did, however, have everything to do with AMC being able to take themselves so incredibly seriously.