Thursday, July 12, 2007

Reality TV concepts

With the genre growing ever staler, as even more European concepts are recycled stateside and vice versa, it's time to bring in da green with some rejuvenating ideas. While the following ideas might be in direct violation of a plethora of laws and international treaties, I think it would make for some pretty entertaining television.

Photoshop Idol
Real estate agents battle it out to see who is the best at taking a fire-damaged, ant-infested, leaking ground-level one-bedroom apartment and displaying it as a penthouse luxury apartment in the bruchures in the preliminary rounds. In the final heat, the contestants are to sell the apartment unseen, and whichever realtor gets the highest price, wins. In every episode, people are voted out, only to be picked up by the police on charges of fraud. The winner is put in the same room as whomever bought the apartment for half an hour.

Da Biggest Loser
In this reality concept, contestants are judged based on several factors - the ratio of how much their car is worth relative to their house (C/H), how much their car stereo and other accessories are worth relative to the value of the car itself (B/C), and whether or not they play golf (G = 1 V G = 0). Whichever participant gets the highest rating (Rating = C/H + B/C +G) is deemed Da Biggest Loser, and is forced to donate 25% of their earnings to a charity of the jury's choice.

Who Wants to be a Politician in Siberia
In this adaptation of a classic game show, politicians have to answer questions from their own political program as well as their opponent's. If the candidate answers all the questions correctly, he or she gets to be prime minister or a minister of their own choice. For each and every time the contestant dodges the question, claims that their party introduced the idea/concept back in 1856, tries to take personal credit for something he or she didn't do or blaims anything on their political counterparts, they get five years at labor camp in Siberia. Also, every broken promise from last election is rewarded with 25 meters of railroad tracks to be laid manually.

Fresh Off The Boat
Here, would-be inventors present their life's work/single biggest idea to a panel of cynical bean-counters who never had an idea of their own - ever. Promising ideas lead to continuation, with each promising candidate having to sign over the rights to their idea/product. In each successive episode, candidates have to improve the product and do marketing research on their own dime, and answer humiliating questions from the panel. For each episode, one participant is given the boot. The winner - and presumably the candidate with the most marketable product/concept - gets a plastic trophy, 1 percent of the revenue for the first fifteen minutes should the product sell, and a PhD from the School of Hard Knocks. Oh wait - this one already exists in Norway under a different name.........

Let's hear your ideas.

Addition: Big Comrade
Rich kids (i.e. kids with rich parents who take advantage of every perk available to them) who are self-proclaimed communists and proponents of a socialist revolution yet drive around in their dad's Mercedes and don't have jobs have to spend four months under conditions identical to those in Soviet under Stalin.

9 comments:

Anders said...

Dude, if you watch the "Fresh Of The Boat" show, you need to take a break from TV.

I have yet to hear about a "reality TV concepts" that has any resemblance to any real life situations, what so ever. That's where your three first fails, as I pretty sure I've seen parts of what you describe in real life...

And by the way, there is already a show called The biggest Loser.

For new ideas for shows, I'm sure pretty sure you can have a combination of Wheel Of Fortune, Deal Or No Deal and "Fresh Of The Boat", where you combine headers with the right application text, and then a jury verdicts whether you get the deal or not...

Wilhelm said...

I knoe there is a show called The Biggest Loser already, hence I used "Da" so as to appear clever.

I like your combination idea. Also, it'd be great to have a show where you ship a bunch of lawyers, politicians, real estate agents and used car salespeople to a deserted island.

There wouldn't be a need for anything more in that series - just ship a fresh load of leeches to the deserted island every week.

Anders said...

Good idea. But do we really need to show that on TV?

Wilhelm said...

Absolutely, 'cause I'd like to wave goodbye

Anders said...

Two more:
Linus Lovers
Get together a group of IT Helpdesk consultants. Give them an urgent but easy problem with high priority in your project to solve. The coke bottled glass wearing geek who managed to delay your project the most due to incompetence and badly developed social skills wins. But don't worry, this is a nice family show, so everybody that gives an answer that is totally irrelevant to your problem and marks it as "solved" will also get a prize.

The prize being free entrance in
Mysterious Island II.
You know that bunch of lawyers, politicians, real estate agents and used car salespeople on that deserted island mentioned above? Now they are joined by a nerdy posse of IT Helpdesk people...

Wilhelm said...

...ya mean Linux Losers, right?

And sure - I'm all for it.

Anders said...

Yeah, why not. Linus Torvalds was the creator of the Linux operatig system. Both works.

Wilhelm said...

...so you know the name of the dude who created the Linux operating system..........

Anders said...

Only first name (it isn't that difficult to remember since Linux is named after him) and I had to google his last name.