Oprah Season Finale "The Big Give" resembles a Reality show

When Oprah Winfrey announced that she was getting into the reality-TV business, it seemed to make as much sense as declaring that her book club would henceforth be devoted to discussing first-person-shooter video games. From her talk show to TV movies like Tuesdays with Morrie, Oprah is the queen of middlebrow televisual uplift. Whereas reality TV is better known for--what's the opposite of uplift? Downpush?

As usual, we should not have doubted her. Oprah's Big Give (the season finale airs April 20) became a decent midseason hit for ABC--decent in both scale and philosophy. The competition, in which contestants race to give away vast sums of money to the needy, combines the adrenaline rush of reality TV with the charitainment of Oprah's talk show. (Lest we forget: "You get a car! You get a car! Everybody gets a car!")

Big Give focuses on the effect of charity: not only the material good it does the recipient but also the spiritual good it does the giver. Its contestants seem to have been chosen as much for their backstories and challenges as for their ability to help others: there's a paraplegic out to prove that she has no limits; a woman in a midlife crisis; a man who uses one challenge to seek out the help of his estranged father, who grew apart from him after a divorce. On Big Give, reality TV is not just a vehicle for giving stuff away. It's a form of therapy.