Proud as a peacock about The Swan

Critics call it sick, but Arthur Smith thinks his new reality show is a cut above the rest

By ALEXANDRA GILL

(Originally published in the Globe and Mail: April 12, 2004)

VANCOUVER -- Arthur Smith has no shame. The Canadian executive producer of The Swan, a new Fox series that critics are calling "the sickest reality TV show in the world," says there were many days during the editing process when he sat in the control room and felt tears rolling down his cheeks.

No, Smith was not crying out of regret for the plastic-surgery spectacle he had wrought. These were tears of pride.

"This is the most emotional TV show I've ever worked on," says Smith, the Montreal-born reality guru who began his career producing Hockey Night in Canada for the CBC. "I'm not ashamed to say I cried."

The Swan, whose second episode airs tonight, purports to give 17 self-described ugly ducklings the opportunity to transform their so-called wretched lives into fairy tales.

Each week, the show takes two women, assigns them a plastic surgeon, personal trainer, dentist and life coach, then follows them through a three-month makeover boot camp in a house with no mirrors.

After a dramatic unveiling at the end of each episode, a panel of judges must decide which of the two has flourished the most and deserves to move on to the final beauty pageant, during which one woman will be crowned the Ultimate Swan.

Before it aired, critics said The Swan hit an extreme new low in reality TV. But executives at Fox were so sure The Swan was going to be a success, they gave it a special debut last week, airing it after the ever popular American Idol on Wednesday night. Sure enough, The Swan preened past its main competition, rounding up 15 million U.S. viewers, compared with the 10.9 million who tuned into ABC for the latest premiere of The Bachelor in the same 9 p.m. time slot. The Swan, broadcast in Canada by Global TV, moves to its regular Monday slot tonight.

Smith says the advance criticism was unfair. "On the surface, it might look sensational. But I was there at the casting. I saw these women, many of whom were really stuck in their lives and hurting. We give them a chance to concentrate on themselves for three months. It's a gift."

Smith isn't one of the 8.7 million Americans who received some sort of nip, tuck or injection last year, according to statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

"I'm a little afraid of the surgery part," Smith says. But he has no moral qualms about the cult of superficial beauty that his show is exalting.

"Plastic surgery is part of the mainstream now. You either believe in it or you don't. And what you see in this show are incredible transformations. I really, really feel good about how these women come out of it. Nobody goes home a loser."

So how did a nice Canadian boy such as Smith go from Hockey Night in Canada to the U.S. trenches of reality TV?

"It all comes down to great storytelling," Smith says, noting that the shows he now produces aren't that far removed from the sports shows he once programmed for the CBC.

"I always had an entertainment response to sports. Television is television. If you're telling good stories, they're well thought out and people enjoy them, it's all good."

Growing up in Montreal, the now 44-year-old co-founder and chief executive officer of A. Smith & Co., says he was a natural-born TV junkie.

"When I was 12, the highlight of my life was getting the new issue of TV Guide and checking off all the shows I wanted to watch that week."

After studying radio and television at Toronto's Ryerson University, Smith landed a plum job as a producer for CBC Sports. Two years later, he was the senior producer for CBC coverage of the Olympics, which is when he first fell in love with Los Angeles.

Then came the 1988 Olympics in Seoul and the Ben Johnson steroid scandal. Smith ran the network's non-stop coverage. And while the experience may have shattered the hopes of many Canadians, it sealed Smith's career. Upon his return, at 28, he was made head of CBC Sports, the youngest division boss at the network at the time.

"I could have retired -- the job was that satisfying," says Smith, who credits Ivan Fecan, then programming chief of CBC, for giving him the opportunity.

Instead, he jumped ship and moved to the United States to produce entertainment shows for Dick Clark.

"Everyone said, 'Are you crazy?' But it was an incredible opportunity. Dick Clark got me my green card. I wanted to do something else."

Smith returned to sports in 1996, when asked to launch Fox Sports Net, a new cable channel that went head-to-head with ESPN. After helping the upstart channel grow from 16 million subscribers to 76 million four years later, he left to start up his own company.

"I want to do as many things as I can," says Smith, whose company has produced everything from a music special on the Goo Goo Dolls to documentary series for the History Channel about people in dangerous situations overseas.

Lately, the company has found its niche in reality programming. In addition to The Swan, A. Smith & Co. was the producer behind Paradise Hotel, last summer's hit Fox series in which a group of scantily clad guys and gals hang out at a luxury hotel. The ones who hooked up with the most members of the opposite sex got to stay.

In the wake of the show's success, Smith's company was asked to produce Forever Eden, now airing on Fox, a soap-opera version of Paradise Hotel, at which the guests are expected to stay indefinitely.

Smith has also produced Mad Mad House, a 10-part series now airing on the Space Channel in which 10 "normal" people are thrown into a cozy living arrangement with a witch, a vampire, a naturist and a voodoo practitioner and a modern primitive. And coming soon to UPN, the Smith-produced I'm Still Alive, a show about real people who have cheated death in some of the most unlikely scenarios.

Is Smith proud of what he does?

"Absolutely. I'm in the entertainment business."

In Smith's opinion, reality TV is here to stay. "This is not a fad any more. It's a new genre. We have a whole generation that grew up on reality shows. Now they're older, and reality TV has matured with them.

"When people watch TV now, they're not even thinking if it's a reality show or not. If it hits them emotionally and it's entertaining, they don't care if it's reality or not.

"As time goes on, reality will have to continue to reinvent itself. The good shows will survive, the bad ones won't."

The Swan, he predicts modestly, will be a winner.

"I can see it coming back year after year."

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