The new face of reality TV?

Probably not, but there are some new shows that are compelling, at least for me.

I know that there remains a stigma to so-called “reality TV” or what is more accurately called unscripted television. To be sure, I have my own judgment about the shows I don’t and won’t watch, but as avid readers of this substack know, I”m non-apologetic about my love for Survivor. I’m also into The Amazing Race but in general, that was kind of it for me.

During the pandemic lockdown, like others I discovered the show Alone, where 10 contestants wander off completely by themselves (hence, the show name). They are their own cameraman, and the goal is that the person who stays out there the longest wins the cash prize, which is usually around $500,000. The contestants are trained survivalists, with different backgrounds, and it’s cool to see them use different techniques to find food, to create fire, etc. There’s always quite a lot of drama around the predators in their area like wolves, grizzly bears and such, but thankfully that’s only been a threat in the many seasons aired since.

It’s not great to watch contestants lose terrifying amounts of weight - if you thought Survivor was bad, note that those seasons last less than a month these days and Alone contestants can and are out there for months. But it’s a really bold premise and though most seasons seem to be a bit repetitive, I still watch.

But now, two new shows have taken another leap and I think I’m in.

The first is on CBS, aired right after Survivor, and it’s called The Summit. It takes a bunch of regular folks, in various levels of physical condition, and asks them to make their way to - you guessed it - the summit of a mountain far away.

There is a set time for this challenge, and the group has to work together. The initial show suggested that everyone didn’t totally know what the challenge was before the first day, which seems…both implausible and idiotic. The host, Manu Bennett, is a bit too serious and dramatic for me thus far.

BUT, it’s kind of cool. The challenges are LEGIT - they have to hike on rocky paths, cross rickety suspension bridges (we can see they are obviously safe with harnesses and such). And then, at the end of each challenge, they publicly vote someone out. It’s a combination of Survivor and The Amazing Race and while it’s definitely a bit creaky, I’m hoping they find their sea legs.

The other show is called Race to Survive, and it’s WAY more intense. Also based in New Zealand, the racers are all elite athletes and they need to be. Each challenge in the Summit is less than a leg in a multi-day race on this show. Food is also a challenge - the top finishers of each race may get either some food or some means of getting it, but they can also go somewhat hungry. (Each race also has some food caches but they require you going off-course, sacrificing time to get that food. Notably, most folks make that sacrifice - but not everybody.)

Being in New Zealand makes both shows incredibly scenic - along with Iceland it has some of the most unspoiled dramatic geography in the world. The physical requirements are so intense, it’s laughable to watch and wonder how quickly you’d bonk out and … yeah it’s sometime in the first leg of the first race. There are constructs and restrictions like any show but unlike most reality shows, they’re not to be wacky, or to create artificial drama - they’re almost all for safety. (That’s a bit less true in The Summit, where in one scene they had to axe a suspension bridge while the last man over was walking across it.)

Whoever wins these shows will have earned them, for sure. It won’t be because they were actually not a threat for being good at the game, or because the most talented team got a shitty taxi driver just when it mattered most. And for that reason, I’m really looking forward to seeing how they pan out.