I’d do a Battle Royale with all the current inmates on death row in every state. Which, if you haven’t seen the movie, means each inmate gets a pack with a random item in it that may or may not be a weapon (gun, knife, pot lid, binoculars, bullet proof vest, gps tracker, etc) and enough bottled water to survive for a week (and maybe some food to get them started, but probably not). They’re put on a remote island and have tracking devices installed on them (in the movie they were little necklaces). They have to keep moving because if they’re in a danger zone at the appropriate time (and danger zones are randomized and change every day at 3 or 4 hour intervals), their tracking device will explode and kill them. If they try to leave the island, it explodes. At the end of a week, one person has to be left. If more than one person is left at the end of the week (say there’s a cooperative group), they all explode.
The incentive to win is that they’re told the last person standing gets a full pardon from jail and a million dollars. Except what will really happen is the last guy will be killed after he’s killed everybody else.
It’s not the same as reality, but there is a horrible looking movie coming out in October based on this concept. Real Steel.
If TV could show anything, I think we’d see more things that exploit children. Perhaps Baby Derby 2012, or a reality show where cute toddlers-preschoolers compete to be adopted by a couple who wants a new addition to the family.
But on the bright side, if TV stations could show ANYTHING there are better odds that my idea for a new HGTV show could become reality: Erratic Design, which would each episode feature two teams of designers, one made up of unmedicated schizophrenics, and the other junkies. The most creative, yet functional, design would win!
As it is they show way too much vomiting. I can only imagine what they’d show if there were no boundaries. So I’m going to have to go with bodily functions: uncut and unfiltered.
I wish there could be s sitcom about Muslims in the US. There is one on Canada, Little Mosque on the Prairie. We’d probably see Battlebots vs. Death Row before we saw something like that.
Or a show where the design team truly picks someone at random (say somebody goes away on vacation, and without there knowledge or permission completely remodels their house, replaces all their furniture, etc all without knowing a single thing about the homeowner or their taste. Maybe to the occasional cross over with your show.
Another idea would be House Hunters: WTF?!. Each house would look completely normal on the outside, but have all kinds of bizarre design choices insides. Like his & hers toilets that face each other, an attic kitchen, no bathrooms, standard gas kitchen stoves in all the bedrooms, no hallways, toilets in every room, a sex dungeon, a media room designed to look the inside of whale, stairs which led nowhere, etc. The potential homehowners would not be in on the gag and the real estate agent would have to try and sell them. This idea’s actually doable in theory (at least it would be legal); just really expensive to pull off.
How about a quirky family dramedy about a blended family (with a bunch of kids ranging from preteen to high school age) that runs a resort. A clothing optional resort; one parent an avid life long naturist, the other a recent convert. Their older kids would be all over the map between embracing naturism and being embaressed by the whole thing. Not even HBO could pull that off. Maybe it’d work in Germany.
I also have a bunch of ideas for alternate history programing that would be perfectly if only the producers didn’t have to worry about attracting an audience beyond alt history nerds.
I would love to have the BORING channel that shows what things are really like for lots of things. It would have to be publicly funded because it is the antithesis of what the existing media is all about but it would be informative.
Some ideas for episodes:
Marriage after the fairy tale wedding - setting budgets, schedules and expectations. A few good examples will be shown along with some that don’t make it and have to go through divorce and set up another life later.
Underbelly of Prestigious Professions - ER Doctors alternate between savings lives and fighting with HMO’s and other insurance companies over approved treatment plans. Firefighters and police officers discuss back at the office how they would totally save that hot blonde if the opportunity ever came up. Soldiers gossip about what they heard is going on back in Hollywood based on their limited internet time and wonder when that bag of beef jerky is coming in from home.
Retirement life - you will get to pursue your dreams one day but things are so expensive right now. The kids are so busy too. What do they do all the time? I should volunteer for something but I don’t have the time myself between all the appointments and riff-raff going on.
Here’s the story of a lovely lady
Who was bringing up three very lovely waifs.
All of them had hair of gold, like their mother,
The carpets all were matching to the drapes.
Here’s the store, of a man named Brady,
Who was busy with three boys of his own,
They were four men, living all together,
There was no one there to bone.
Till the one day when the lady met this fellow
And he took her to a nudist colony,
The boys got wood looking at the ladies,
Except for Alice whose tits were at her knees.
The other great idea I had was, “Who Wants To Be A Reality Show Producer?” Ten people compete to pitch their reality show ideas to a panel of showbiz insiders and some random drug-addled washed-up former starlet, and the winner gets their own reality show.
I’m watching a couple of Canadian-made series right now that have realistic swearing (Lost Girl and Todd and the Book of Pure Evil) and I can’t believe what a difference it makes - when someone comes home to a chopped up body, they say, “Holy shit!” or some variation on that, not, “Oh my!”
I want to see that.
I would totally watch both of those.
The show “How It’s Made” which documents how ordinary, household things are made is surprisingly interesting - these shows might also be.
Has anyone here seen the movie Series 7? It was about a reality show wherein six contestants are picked at random from society and have to kill one another to survive. The one left alive at the end wins. (I forget what the prize was - either their freedom or some amount of money.)
