Who Butchered My Fave Reality Show?

When in Manila and don’t have anything to do, switch on the TV. You might catch some really good and successful shows. 

What makes a successful TV show?

Is it high ratings? Lots of ads? Succeeding seasons?

Aside from these, I think the number 1 sign that a show is successful is viewer satisfaction. You can’t say a certain show has succeeded if the reception is not that good. 

This is why I don’t feel like the local versions of hit US reality game shows are successful. It could just be me (and dozens of other hardcore fans) but our own spins on Survivor, The Amazing Race, and American Idol were not that impressive.

It’s exciting when you first hear that there’s going to be a local version of a hit reality show. 

But the anticipation doesn’t always pay off once you’ve seen the outcome. And you wonder, how in the world has producers managed to butcher your favorite show?

Will Survivor survive?

When news of a local Survivor broke out, I was ecstatic. I wanted to see how Pinoys are going to adapt to the nature of the game. Being the conservative people that we are, watching how Pinoy castaways be-friend and backstab each other should be a treat. 

 

 

I had high hopes for the first season of Survivor Philippines

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.org

 

 

I thought the first batch of survivors had enough interesting people. Unfortunately, all my hopes for a great show dissipated in the first fifteen minutes of the game.

In the beginning the host tells the players to jump into the water in 30 seconds. And then he started counting. I was thinking what would happen if they don’t get out of the boat in 30 seconds? Is he going to cut them from the game immediately?

Obviously, that’s not going to happen because they had just enough people for two tribes. It was irrelevant and foolish. It would’ve worked if the castaways had to salvage supplies from the boat. But there were none.

Loud and boring a lot of times

The challenges were inspired by the original show, which was no surprise. I found them interesting enough but what became annoying every single challenge was the host’s incessant shouting.

I get that he needs to describe what’s happening, as Jeff Probst does this a lot, but did he always have to shout?

He’s a great host but, to me, he sucked as a Survivor host. This became even more evident during tribal councils—the time when everything that’s gone done at camp is revealed and where amazing things (should) happen. In the case of Survivor Philippines, watching the news is way more interesting.

Successful tribal councils, I’ve noticed through the years, is based on the host’s ability to ask the right questions and pry into the castaways’ island lives. That’s how the US Survivor had so much awesome moments at tribal. In the case of our version, however, I couldn’t think of one great moment. How come? My guess is only as good as yours.