Fans vs. Favorites
Aug. 26th, 2011 12:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_a(Some obscure spoilers for tonight's Big Brother.)
So Kimberly and I have been watching Big Brother this summer, as we have for the last several years. It's very probably the lowest of the lowest of the shows we watch, but I enjoy the evolving gameplay, and we both enjoy the social dynamics (and it fills the space between seasons of better shows like Survivor and The Amazing Race). This year Big Brother did something very close to Survivor's Fan vs. Favorites season, with pretty bad results. I'd hope that future reality show folks figure out that adding more than a couple of old-timers to these shows can totally break them.
The biggest problem, and we saw this in both the older Survivor and in this Big Brother, is that the favorites just walk all over the fans. Back in Survivor, one of the fans actually gave up immunity because he was so in love with the favorites (and, to a certain extent, with boobies). But this season of Big Brother has been even worse, because with the exception of one player who's long gone, all of the fans have been competing to see which favorites they get to help along the way without particularly playing for themselves.
So problem number one is that the fans have no game in competition with people they've seen on TV.
Problem number two showed up in tonight's Big Brother. 55 days in, some of the fans decided to get off their butts and play for themselves. And the result pretty well throws viewer expectation on its head. Because these folks who had been lapdogs for most of the show are suddenly unseating the people who looked like they were going to win. Bad, bad storytelling results.
So to me, this has looked like a dull season full of kinda sad people, followed by a disappointing season.
For the love of god, reality TV makers, don't do fans vs. favorites setups!
So Kimberly and I have been watching Big Brother this summer, as we have for the last several years. It's very probably the lowest of the lowest of the shows we watch, but I enjoy the evolving gameplay, and we both enjoy the social dynamics (and it fills the space between seasons of better shows like Survivor and The Amazing Race). This year Big Brother did something very close to Survivor's Fan vs. Favorites season, with pretty bad results. I'd hope that future reality show folks figure out that adding more than a couple of old-timers to these shows can totally break them.
The biggest problem, and we saw this in both the older Survivor and in this Big Brother, is that the favorites just walk all over the fans. Back in Survivor, one of the fans actually gave up immunity because he was so in love with the favorites (and, to a certain extent, with boobies). But this season of Big Brother has been even worse, because with the exception of one player who's long gone, all of the fans have been competing to see which favorites they get to help along the way without particularly playing for themselves.
So problem number one is that the fans have no game in competition with people they've seen on TV.
Problem number two showed up in tonight's Big Brother. 55 days in, some of the fans decided to get off their butts and play for themselves. And the result pretty well throws viewer expectation on its head. Because these folks who had been lapdogs for most of the show are suddenly unseating the people who looked like they were going to win. Bad, bad storytelling results.
So to me, this has looked like a dull season full of kinda sad people, followed by a disappointing season.
For the love of god, reality TV makers, don't do fans vs. favorites setups!