TVSquad

I can't even blame the cable networks for this anymore. The History Channel is expanding its repertoire of reality programs as a direct response to the record ratings they've seen with the ones they have now. What do we expect them to do when we don't show up to watch until they throw Ice Road Truckers and Pawn Stars at us? Apparently, we don't want history on the History Channel.

They've heard us, which is why The History Channel is bringing us more reality, starting with a spi-off of the aforementioned Truckers. Extreme Trucking will travel the world looking for the most treacherous roadways anywhere, and the brave men and women who drive them.

We can also look forward to traveling the US with Pickers, as people hunt for rare artifacts. And we'll get down and dirty with a 61-year old feud at a North Carolina NASCAR track with Madhouse. Even more unusual is Sliced, a series where objects are cut in half so we can see what they look like. Hey, if they cut a tree in half we can look at the history of it!

It's doubtful the tough guys (and gal) driving north to Alaska on the current season of Ice Road Truckers are big video game players. They're too busy staying alive while driving tons of cargo over roads would keep sane people home from school.

But, that's not stopping The (former) History Channel from launching its first paid iPhone and iPod Touch game with an application that allows users to command 18-wheelers across Arctic roads.

Fans of the show -- and of snowy truck driving in general -- can download a free, "lite" test version of the game now through Apple iTunes.

The History Channel has updated its website and schedule for the the return of one of its toughest and most popular reality series, Ice Road Truckers.

Set to return Sunday nights on May 31, new episodes of Ice Road Truckers take the show's cameras from the diamond mines and frozen highways of Canada's Northwest Territories north to the oil fields of Alaska.

Previous seasons featured rugged truck drivers (like Hugh "The Polar Bear" Rowland, right) braving subzero temperatures to drive rigs weighing thousands of tons over ice pathways smoothed out over frozen lakes.

Family and the workplace -- two constants in everyday American society. They are the places where we spend most of our lives. Sometimes we spend more time at one over complaints of the other. Other times, we barely want to spend time at either location.

Because these are so important to many people across this country, it made sense that television would delve into both of these environments during the Reality Revolution. However, since a 60-minute show about a senior technical analyst sitting in his four square-foot cube was not likely to draw in the audience, the reality shows that were created focused on those families and workplaces that were a tad more unique. Thusly, shows were created around well-to-do families, celebrity families, or families with multiple children, while workplace shows dealt in tattoos, motorcycles, hair styling, and house-flipping.

Coming in later than the game operas and relationship shows, these family and workplace programs ushered in a new phase of the Reality Revolution and set the stage for the future of reality programming.

One of the most eagerly anticipated new series from USA Network, In Plain Sight, will premiere on June 1st, a week earlier than previously announced. The Mary McCormack-Frederick Weller drama, the latest in USA's "characters welcome" campaign, was originally going to air on Sunday, June 8th, at 10 p.m., but that would have put the show up against two tough cable competitors -- the return of Lifetime's Army Wives for a second season, and History Channel's second year of Ice Road Truckers. This is USA's way of giving In Plain Sight a leg up on the competition -- unless Lifetime moves Army Wives and History moves IRT, respectively, to June 1st. Quick, who's going to blink?

After making Deadliest Catch a huge hit for the Discovery Channel back in 2006, and still going strong, Thom Beers' Original Productions struck gold again with The History Channel's adrenaline rush Ice Road Truckers. Catch chronicles the real-life adventures of Alaskan crab fishers, considered one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, while Truckers is about one of the most dangerous jobs on land, driving big rigs in the Northern Canadian provinces over frozen lakes.

Now, according to Zap2It, Beers has inked an aggressive deal with NBC for three new shows. The network has given a 10-episode commitment to all three and guaranteed they will run at least two in prime time. So what are they about? Apparently, it didn't matter because Beers is working with the network now to figure out the subjects for all three.

One of my favorite series this summer has been Ice Road Truckers on the History Channel. If you haven't seen it, a quick synopsis: truck drivers in northern Canada haul critical supplies hundreds of miles across frozen lakes to diamond mines owned by DeBeers and other corporations.

Ice Road Truckers is the kind of reality show I can dig, because it features real people with an extraordinary occupation. There's some drama, but it's never contrived or played up for the cameras. I stopped watching Dog the Bounty Hunter because I got sick of egregious musical cues dictating when I was supposed to feel something, and Ice Road Truckers is mercifully void of such manipulation. The fact that these men are driving heavy rigs with only a few inches of ice between themselves and the water is dramatic enough.