I don’t think of myself as a huge
fan of reality shows, but that’s really because I don’t care for the “documentary
about loathsome people” variety. Shows
about competent people doing what they’re good at, on the other hand, I tend to
like a lot. They work best when they
take the tone of cheering the participants on—pushing them to do things they
might not have realized themselves capable of—rather than setting them up to
fail. This is a thin line on many of the
competition shows, since of course someone has to “fail” to be knocked off each
week. But some shows really embody the philosophy of wanting everyone to succeed,
and just finding the best among a group of people the show already acknowledges
as great in the first place. So You
Think You Can Dance may be the best example of this. I appreciate that, since these shows are
about merit rather than drama (and also because they are engineered this way), they
also tend to have very diverse casts. A
second group, like Top Chef and Project Runway, also do this well, but
incorporate interpersonal drama into the mix.
I enjoy these shows, but I find myself fast forwarding past the interpersonal
drama part to get to the competence porn.
I don’t think I’m alone in feeling
this way—give me more talented people doing what they’re good at, please—and yet,
a number of competition shows amp up the interpersonal drama. I used to enjoy America’s Next Top Model, but
in the last few years it’s become an unwatchable mass of acrimony, like The
Real World interspersed with occasional photo shoots. Clearly I’m not the target market, and I know
there must be a huge audience for hair-pulling and imprecations, since there
are so many shows about them. But for my
taste, just show me the competence.
Under
the Gunn (Lifetime, new.
Reality/Competition.)
Watched: most of one season (a few episodes remain)
Premise: Project Runway meets The Voice.
Promise: The idea here is that three former Project
Runway all-stars act as mentors for young designers who compete, Project
Runway-style. It has many of the same
charms as Project Runway—seeing what creative people can do with various
constraints—but we’re also getting to see a lot of the mentors’ processes,
which is both good and bad. Sometimes I
just want to get out of their heads and into the designs. I appreciate our discovering the finer points
of what makes someone a good mentor, and discovering just how difficult Tim
Gunn’s job on Project Runway really is.
But all of the designers are less experienced than their Project Runway
counterparts, and it shows in their work, which seems less sophisticated and
less well thought-out. Plus, the parts that
focus on the disagreements among competitors were never my favorites on Project
Runway. This has those, and also parts
about the differences in mentoring style among the mentors. While these have some interest from a
pedagogical standpoint, they can get a bit slow.
Verdict: Worth watching…but with one finger on the DVR
remote to fast-forward through the slower parts.
Jim
Henson’s Creature Shop Challenge (SyFy, new. Reality/Competition.)
Watched: First two episodes
Premise: Face Off for creature/puppet fabrication
Promise: This show involves skills I can’t even fathom
having to this degree or combination—creature building involves a very complex mix
of creativity, technological skill, fabrication and sewing, painting,
sculpture, and resourcefulness. Because
one of the most necessary for this sort of production is teamwork, this time
there’s a reason for all of the
attention to interpersonal interactions, and I’m actually quite impressed by
how well everyone gets along. Still, the
first two episodes have a bit too much interpersonal drama for my taste. For that reason, as the hard-to-work-with
people are eliminated, as they undoubtedly will be, it will get more fun to
watch, since fundamentally this is a great display of competence—watching
people do amazing things in a short time and get constructive feedback. It’s not quite So You Think You Can Dance,
since the results of their feverish work isn’t emotionally impactful the way
dance is, but I’m enjoying being impressed by their abilities, and the
abilities of the puppeteers who ultimately operate their creations.
Verdict: If you like Face Off, this
is great.
I’m giving a SimonBaker to American Dream Builders, which
is another competence competition show, but about home renovation contractors. I really enjoyed Trading Spaces some years
ago, and I imagine this show it would hold much of the same appeal but also
much of the same pitfalls. I would
really enjoy “Top Chef meets This Old House,” and perhaps this show is it. But as it stands, I just didn’t have time to give
it a chance.
On the DVR/Unreviewed: The Red Road, Review,
Sirens, Crisis, The 100.
