Now prime-time is wall-to-gyprocked-wall with no-name wannabes.

No wonder so many actors are taking your order at cafes when ordinary folk are taking all the starring roles on television.

A decade ago, as the reality TV competition formats took off with Survivor, Gary Shandling, star of the brilliant late-night talk show satire The Larry Sanders Show, won applause from an audience of actors at the Emmys when he remarked that ‘‘real people shouldn’t be on television’’.

“It’s for special people like us who have trained and studied to appear to be real,” Shandling said.

The problem now is that even “real” people on shows like MasterChef appear to have trained and studied to appear to be real. It’s one of the reasons people tell me they’ve gone off MasterChef: silly challenges, fake contestants and dodgy verdicts.

MasterChef? Preposterous, prepackaged and ultimately pointless?

Hello? It’s hosted by a bloke in a cravat, people!

I can’t verify if MasterChef has gone off the boil. I haven’t watched an episode this year. Life’s too short.

I’d rather watch Angry Boys and feel angry that it’s not funny than watch MasterChef and feel empty.

So, now we have The Renovators, aka MasterChef with hammers.

Of course, with The Block sponsored by one hardware chain and The Renovators backed by another, their ultimate purpose – like supermarket-sponsored MasterChef – is as screamingly obvious as that ad for flat-pack kitchens during Sunday’s Renovators opener.

The question is can The Renovators top the absurdity of MasterChef, which had the audacity to take its amateur cooks to the UN in New York and recruit the Dalai Lama as a guest.

I’m thinking a retiled bathroom in the International Space Station and a Mystery Toolbox Challenge with the Pope.