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Reality television. It sounds simple enough. Get a video camera, turn it on, point it at someone for hundreds of hours, watch it all, edit it, sell it to some TV Executives, and bam... you've got a hit show on prime time television. That's really all it takes. You don't need talent, you don't need writers, and you don't need big time television production. All you need is reality.

Or is it?

On Tuesday, July 24, FOX Broadcasting aired their new reality television show Murder In Small Town X (hereby referred to as MSTX). Simply described as "How To Host A Murder" on speed, this weekly one hour show pulls its viewers into a game of murder and suspense.

MSTX is an elaborate mystery set in Sunrise, USA (or Maine) and combines the reality-show concept with television production. The premise of the show is simple. After a local Sunrise family (the Flints) is murdered, ten players (our reality heros) and their mentor (real life cop Gary Fredo) are thrust together into the game of trying to catch the killer. The players will work together, search for clues, interview witnesses, whatever it takes, to solve the crime.

So ten people and all you have to do is solve the crime? Sounds simple enough. But where's the back-stabbing, conniving actions we're used to seeing from Big Brother, Survivor, and other reality shows? Fear not, this is where the rules come in.

Every three days the killer will leave one black and one red envelope for the investigators. In the red envelope will be a question about the investigation. If the question is answered correctly, the killer clears one of the suspects, narrowing down the field. In the black envelope will be two locations. At one location, the killer will leave an important clue... at the other, the killer will be waiting for the investigator — and they will be eliminated.

Here's where the malicious play comes in. Two people will be chosen to go to the locations deemed in the black envelope. The first person will be selected by the group via secret ballot. The second person will be selected by the lifeguard, who does this out loud in front of the group. For the first episode, the lifeguard was determined by a random drawing. For the rest of the episodes, he/she is picked by the last investigator killed (recorded before they leave). If you're a lifeguard, your life is safe for those next three days (you stay at headquarters and you don't have to play the killer's game). The lifeguard will monitor and stay in touch with the teams out in the field and assign who is on what team each day. As stated before, the lifeguard chooses the second person out loud... which could bring back bad vibes if that person were to survive the location and make it back to HQ.

So the show starts (I'm not going to do a complete play-by-play, you can find great episode summaries, and lots of other information, at http://www.fox.com/smalltownx/). We're shown a film of the murder of Nate Flint and his daughter Abby. Ten hours later the Flint house is discovered with blood everywhere (and no bodies) by Samantha Larabee and C.R. Flint (the grandfather). Four days later the ten investigators are flown in and instantly inserted into the game.

The scooby gang went through what looks like to be a normal show routine. There was a lifeguard named, teams went out and did some research, the envelopes showed up, they answered the question correctly (mark off one suspect — the police chief), they sent two people away, and one came back... pissed.

The last ten minutes of the show were intense. When Kristen and Shirley went out scouting the two locations(a chicken farm and an island cabin) with their personal cameras strapped to them (a la MTV's Fear), I was scared. The movement of the camera was very choppy and unpredictable, much like The Blair Witch Project(no, not part two). With five minutes to go we started to see a different perspective: the killer's. Eventually the killer snuck up behind Shirley, the show's only African-American contestant, and eliminated her.

I think this was a fun show. I felt strapped into my chair for the full hour. For those of you who liked the movie The Game, then this is right up your alley. It seems as if FOX has hired out the entire town and everyone, I mean everyone, is in on this.

In some instances the show felt forced. I thought some actors were trying really hard to get their point across, some acting wasn't very fluid, and Fredo (the mentor) showing clues to the team that weren't obvious but were important. I bet it will get better with time. It must be one giant mess to put something on like this; think of a smaller version of The Truman Show. The beauty of this show is we don't know who the killer is... and I'm willing to bet that when they filmed it, none of the actors knew if they were the killer until the end.

As much as it felt semi-forced, the investigators surprised me with their enthusiasm. They were into this from the start. Some were walking around the crime scene looking for clues while some were interviewing suspects (and taking chances). They all looked pretty spooked when the killer sent them a second video where they were the focus of the footage... the killer was watching them and it turns out that they have probably already talked to him/her.

This isn't just another reality show where everyone's competing to win, to be the last one (even though the winner gets 250k). In this game the team counts. And the more people you have going around figuring stuff out, the sooner the case will be solved (as if FOX will end it any sooner, though). This show's concept is great, and if executed correctly, this could be a profitable one for FOX.

I'll definitely be watching this every week, and I'll be providing my color-commentary right here on this website. I've got to keep watching because I have to answer these questions:

• Who are those weirdos with brooms?
• Is Andrew screwed over now that Kristen didn't die?
• Where are the missing bodies of Nate and Abby Flint?
• Who's grave are they digging up next episode?
• How much business does X-Ray (the town's only taxi driver) really get?

And now for my Killer Guess of the Week: Rusty Crandall

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