![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aTwo and a half years ago, in the Spring of 2000, fear was still running high over the possibility of a writer's strike taking down an entire season of broadcast television. Thus, networks were willing to take chances on unusual ideas that could avoid the oversight of the WGA.
One of these unusual ideas was Survivor, the first reality tv show to hit the mass American market. Five "seasons" later, Survivor is starting to show its age, and it's becoming slowly apparent that the WGA actually doesn't have anything to worry about ...
The Uncommon Becomes Common
Season by season, Survivor's ratings have dropped. At first it was a phenomenon, then a hit, now a strong show. The reason for this gradual drop only became truly obvious to me when a friend briefly talked to his wife while we were playing Cities & Knights of Catan last Thursday. He got off the phone and said, "Tonight's Survivor is apparently really good."
"Ah," I thought. "Upheaval and betrayal. Alliances break down and the entire tenor of the game changes."
In actuality, it was simply the Survivors-meet-their-loved-ones-who-visit-them-on-the-island episode. It's been run in various forms in most shows, starting in Survivor I. The only difference this time around was that the Survivor's loved ones had to eat gross things, like scorpions and tarantulas, in order to remain on the island.
Ho-hum, a "gross food challenge", with a twist.
The reason that someone else found this episode exciting, and I found it merely fun but familiar, was, I expect, the novelty factor. I'd seen this all before in different variations. The other person, I can only guess, was not as ardent of a viewer as I.
The Success of the Show?
I think a lot of the success of Survivor has to do with that novelty factor.
Personally, I like it for (1) the interactions between the people -and- (2) the guessing about who's going to win. I'm sure other people like watching it to see what new challenges the poor survivors would have to face, or to see if there would be any sex among the athletic contenders.
But, the various probability spreads on all of these events are all very low. Though those personal interactions are at first interesting, there are only so many ways to interact regarding food, shelter, challenges, and alliances. Challenges have been largely repeated, with slight variations. And it's become obvious by now that there's too much hunger, exhaustion, and smelliness for any sex to come along. That's another way of saying that the novelty of these various activities quickly fades.
And so, for a long-term viewer, that means the only thing that remains interesting is, "Who's gonna win?"
The Tyranny of Probability
If we define "Who's gonna win?" as the primary long-term viability factor of Survivor, we get down to a simple game of probability. In the best probability case, one of the remaining Survivors can be voted out each week, and so can figure out the total different outcomes with the following calculation:
On the other hand, there are some tight constraints implicit in how the community of Survivor evolves. One of these constraints is the fact that an alliance of 5 will have dominance at any stage in the game.
Since tribes are originally 8 in size, for the first 6 weeks we can presume that the loser is drawn from one of the two pools of 3. There's typically a merge at 10, which is a very unstable situation where any of the 10 could go. At that point we have a 5/4 imbalance, and thus can predict the next 4 to go. Spelling this out offers the following probability:
In actuality, though, it's unlikely to matter what those first six eliminations are, since they're relatively set & so interchangeable. Likewise once a team reaches dominance, postmerge, how they eliminate the other team is irrelevent. Thus:
Finally we can say that the merge probability is actually 1 in 2, not 1 in 10, because it's important what team loses a member, not what individual goes home:
240 possibilities, you might say, not bad. Still, it's got two things going against it.
First, most of that probability is encoded into three episodes: the merge episode and the last two.
Second, though 240 possibilities might seem like a like, it's a small enough number to be predictable after achieving an understanding of the game.
To suggest if not prove my point I offer the following, written after 3 weeks of the current show:
My picks for boots #4, #5, and #6 went #4, #5, and #7. My pick for the team emerging victorious after the merge emerged victorious. And why not? That's all the low probability zone.
We're now down to the last 5, and I don't place nearly as much faith in my predictions at this point, because there are 120 somewhat real possibilities left at this point. On the other hand I think it's quite possible I know the final 3 (Brian, Ted, and Clay), but that's again due to the tyranny of numbers. It looks like there's an alliance of 3 out of 5, and thus the next gone are known, reducing our remaining probability in this show to 3*2*1, or 6.
That's a big drop from 21 trillion.
The Victory of Creativity
You can choose whichever measure is your favorite for how many unpredictableness there is in Survivor. It could be 21 trillion possibilities, or it could be 6.
The point is: the possibilities are always severely limited in a "reality" gameshow like Survivor.
On the other hand, look at a Buffy or a Stargate-SG1 or a Babylon 5. Who would have predicted that [XXX] would have died or [XXX] would have gained Ga'ould powers or [XXX] would have become the President of Earth?
In the realm of creativity the possibilities are endless, and that's why reality TV could continue to be a strong force in television, but will never truly eclipse creativity itself.
One of these unusual ideas was Survivor, the first reality tv show to hit the mass American market. Five "seasons" later, Survivor is starting to show its age, and it's becoming slowly apparent that the WGA actually doesn't have anything to worry about ...
The Uncommon Becomes Common
Season by season, Survivor's ratings have dropped. At first it was a phenomenon, then a hit, now a strong show. The reason for this gradual drop only became truly obvious to me when a friend briefly talked to his wife while we were playing Cities & Knights of Catan last Thursday. He got off the phone and said, "Tonight's Survivor is apparently really good."
"Ah," I thought. "Upheaval and betrayal. Alliances break down and the entire tenor of the game changes."
In actuality, it was simply the Survivors-meet-their-loved-ones-who-visit-them-on-the-island episode. It's been run in various forms in most shows, starting in Survivor I. The only difference this time around was that the Survivor's loved ones had to eat gross things, like scorpions and tarantulas, in order to remain on the island.
Ho-hum, a "gross food challenge", with a twist.
The reason that someone else found this episode exciting, and I found it merely fun but familiar, was, I expect, the novelty factor. I'd seen this all before in different variations. The other person, I can only guess, was not as ardent of a viewer as I.
The Success of the Show?
I think a lot of the success of Survivor has to do with that novelty factor.
Personally, I like it for (1) the interactions between the people -and- (2) the guessing about who's going to win. I'm sure other people like watching it to see what new challenges the poor survivors would have to face, or to see if there would be any sex among the athletic contenders.
But, the various probability spreads on all of these events are all very low. Though those personal interactions are at first interesting, there are only so many ways to interact regarding food, shelter, challenges, and alliances. Challenges have been largely repeated, with slight variations. And it's become obvious by now that there's too much hunger, exhaustion, and smelliness for any sex to come along. That's another way of saying that the novelty of these various activities quickly fades.
And so, for a long-term viewer, that means the only thing that remains interesting is, "Who's gonna win?"
The Tyranny of Probability
If we define "Who's gonna win?" as the primary long-term viability factor of Survivor, we get down to a simple game of probability. In the best probability case, one of the remaining Survivors can be voted out each week, and so can figure out the total different outcomes with the following calculation:
= 16!
= 16*15*14*13*12*11*10*9*8*7*6*5*4*3*2*1
= 20,922,789,888,000 possibilities
= 21 trillion possibilities
On the other hand, there are some tight constraints implicit in how the community of Survivor evolves. One of these constraints is the fact that an alliance of 5 will have dominance at any stage in the game.
Since tribes are originally 8 in size, for the first 6 weeks we can presume that the loser is drawn from one of the two pools of 3. There's typically a merge at 10, which is a very unstable situation where any of the 10 could go. At that point we have a 5/4 imbalance, and thus can predict the next 4 to go. Spelling this out offers the following probability:
= 6*5*4*3*2*1*10*4*3*2*1*5*4*3*2*1
= 20,736,000 possibilities
= 21 million possibilities
In actuality, though, it's unlikely to matter what those first six eliminations are, since they're relatively set & so interchangeable. Likewise once a team reaches dominance, postmerge, how they eliminate the other team is irrelevent. Thus:
= 1*1*1*1*1*1*10*1*1*1*1*5*4*3*2*1
= 1,200 possibilities
Finally we can say that the merge probability is actually 1 in 2, not 1 in 10, because it's important what team loses a member, not what individual goes home:
= 1*1*1*1*1*1*2*1*1*1*1*5*4*3*2*1
= 240 possibilities
240 possibilities, you might say, not bad. Still, it's got two things going against it.
First, most of that probability is encoded into three episodes: the merge episode and the last two.
Second, though 240 possibilities might seem like a like, it's a small enough number to be predictable after achieving an understanding of the game.
To suggest if not prove my point I offer the following, written after 3 weeks of the current show:
Survivor: So, with 13 contestants left, who do I think goes, and who do I think sticks around? At this point, they've made three contestants somewhat unlikeable (Robb, Stephanie, and Ghandia), and also introduced conflicts between some of those people and some other contestants (Ghandia v. Ted, Robb v. Shii Ann). My best guess, thus, is that the next three people leaving the island are in that group of five. I think there are some red herrings, some desires to set up villains for the future, and some instances of giving us correct information so that we don't feel cheated when we see who gets booted. My personal boot order for the next three, leading to the tribe merge, would be: Ghandia, Stephanie, Shii Ann.
After the two tribes merge, the gameplay enters a slightly more chaotic state, and its a harder question who actually wins, because you first have to figure out which tribe achieves ascendance. However, I feel like one tribe, Chuay Gahn, has been set up as the underdog; further, at least half of the other tribe, Sook Jai (Ken, Penny, Erin), has been all but invisible in the show to date. For those two reasons, Chuay Gahn is my choice for who takes the upper hand. Of the 5 contestants that I expect to still be on Chuay Gahn post-merge, we have two with somewhat negative portrayals on the show (Helen and Jan) and one who is such an over-the-top game player that there's no way he could be the winner without the producers having already given it away (Brian). That leaves us with two people, one who will have overcome an early conflict (Ted), and another who has universally been portrayed as likeable and funny (Clay). Based on all those hints, I'd peg Clay as the winner of Survivor 5.
My picks for boots #4, #5, and #6 went #4, #5, and #7. My pick for the team emerging victorious after the merge emerged victorious. And why not? That's all the low probability zone.
We're now down to the last 5, and I don't place nearly as much faith in my predictions at this point, because there are 120 somewhat real possibilities left at this point. On the other hand I think it's quite possible I know the final 3 (Brian, Ted, and Clay), but that's again due to the tyranny of numbers. It looks like there's an alliance of 3 out of 5, and thus the next gone are known, reducing our remaining probability in this show to 3*2*1, or 6.
That's a big drop from 21 trillion.
The Victory of Creativity
You can choose whichever measure is your favorite for how many unpredictableness there is in Survivor. It could be 21 trillion possibilities, or it could be 6.
The point is: the possibilities are always severely limited in a "reality" gameshow like Survivor.
On the other hand, look at a Buffy or a Stargate-SG1 or a Babylon 5. Who would have predicted that [XXX] would have died or [XXX] would have gained Ga'ould powers or [XXX] would have become the President of Earth?
In the realm of creativity the possibilities are endless, and that's why reality TV could continue to be a strong force in television, but will never truly eclipse creativity itself.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2002-12-09 02:57 pm (UTC)