I Don't Know What I Think

I guess if presented in a positive manner, this show could produce an increase in vocations to the religious life. At the least it will expose people to a way of life that is hidden.
My fear is that religious life will be ridiculed or displayed as backwards although from what I have heard positive reactions from the British version.
Either way it is an interesting project.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

"On normal mornings, the peals of the bell calling the monks to chapel for their 4 a.m. prayer simply float out into these remote desert hills to reverberate and die.
But for six weeks this winter, the sights and sounds were captured by film crews. And the men who pulled the rope were, many a morning, among five non-monks who were called to live there not by God but by producers from The Learning Channel.
A reality show set in a monastery? Sort of. But producers of this TLC effort, which is scheduled to air as a 10-part series this fall, say they're working on an "observational documentary" that follows people who are at spiritual crossroads and in search of profound answers.
The premise of The Monastery, an American version of a similar British show produced last year for the BBC, is to cloister five men of varied backgrounds and faiths at the Benedictine Monastery of Christ in the Desert here in the mountains northwest of Santa Fe and five women at the Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey on a farm near Dubuque, Iowa. Each participant has a dramatic back story, from a soldier who lost his leg in the Iraq war to a woman who had her first child at age 14 and yet put herself through school for an MBA degree.
"This isn't a reality show," series producer Sarah Woodford says.
"The point has not been to create traps for hapless people to fall into. We're interested in exploring how people like us can live a good and purposeful life and what the 1,500-year-old monastic tradition can teach modern people."