It's Critter Time!

In most reality TV shows, there is some tension between what the producers want and what the contestants want. I'm singling out two shows -- one very old and one very recent -- where I feel like this starkly occurred.

Big Brother US, Season 1

This is widely reviled as an awful and monotonous season of television -- it's actually pretty eventful, in my opinion! The show's engineering is not subtle -- from episode 1 it's obvious what the showrunners intended to happen. As for what we got -- I haven't decided if this is a case where it didn't work or a case where it worked too well.


The Summit, Season 1

The guy who directed this worked on The Challenge and Deal or No Deal Island, both of which are very much worth your time. I'm singling this out because it had my rapt attention for its entire run -- not because of the gameplay, although that's notable -- but because of the perverse game it plays with the viewer.


Click the "spoiler" button for a more detailed explanation of why I'm recommending the show. (At your peril -- these are genuine spoilers.)

There's a really funny double take on this in Scare Tactics, which was a dumb candid camera show where they tried to get the victims with scary situations.

I feel like Opposite Worlds is the exact kind of show this thread is looking for! Chock full of injuries due to production incompetence, nonsense games, and a fundamentally faulty premise: “would a person living in the past or would a person living in the future be… better? equipped for challenges, I guess?” The winners of each challenge would get to choose whether to live in the “past” or the “future” for that upcoming week, and because the “past” was basically a damp cave the winners chose the future home every week and as a result kept steamrolling the hungry and tired cave-dwellers. Total mess of a show, unhinged premise, 0/10

Ace wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 9:20 pm I feel like Opposite Worlds is the exact kind of show this thread is looking for! Chock full of injuries due to production incompetence, nonsense games, and a fundamentally faulty premise: “would a person living in the past or would a person living in the future be… better? equipped for challenges, I guess?” The winners of each challenge would get to choose whether to live in the “past” or the “future” for that upcoming week, and because the “past” was basically a damp cave the winners chose the future home every week and as a result kept steamrolling the hungry and tired cave-dwellers. Total mess of a show, unhinged premise, 0/10

This show verges on unwatchable and that for me made it incredibly engrossing -- although I'll admit I only made it through seven episodes because it was so incredibly consistent.

It ages interestingly (well? poorly?) because of its portrayal of the Future, which is distinctly Windows XP-era despite the fact that the show was made in 2014.

(As for Scare Tactics: never heard of it!! I'll go in unspoiled.)