According to TMZ, David Hester, one of the main bidders involved in the hit “reality” show Storage Wars, is out…and he’s filed a lawsuit against the company making the show claiming that it’s rigged:

http://www.tmz.com/2012/12/11/storage-wars-rigged-david-hester-lawsuit/

I happen to like Storage Wars, though there wasn’t always a sense that things we saw on the show were always on the “up and up”.  For example, if you watched some of the earlier first season episodes, you found that the protagonists weren’t always prone to having hardball rivalries between themselves.  Indeed, I recall one episode where one of the bidders, Darrell I believe, actually tried to help out Jarrod with a locker’s value.  But as the episodes/seasons drew on, the participants became more characters than people.  They were more and more presented as trying to either outbid or screw their rivals and there was a feeling -at least to me- there was a real attempt to mold their behaviors for the purpose of being more entertaining. Backstabbing, after all, can be hugely entertaining!

With that in mind, it doesn’t surprise me too much to hear that there was, at least according to Mr. Hester in his lawsuit, “planting” of items in the storage lockers being bid on.  Again, if the show’s makers are happy to create personalities rather than people, why stop there?  Why not also show “incredible” discoveries in the lockers…discoveries that may well have been planted?

In the end, viewers must always beware.  It should be no big revelation to say that “reality” shows are often as “real” as all the other fictional shows presented on TV.