There are several new reality shows slated for this fall, but…they all seem to be the same- boring. There needs to be more inovative ideas for these shows if the networks are going to continue to inflict them on the public. Let’s come up with reality shows that would be worth watching.
I’d like to pitch my show idea to Fox. It will be called “Hitchhikers”
The premise is that there will be two teams of 8 people each, half of them will be asigned to the Drivers team, and half to the Hitchhikers team. Both teams will start out in Maine, and the goal will be to reach southern CA. Working completely independant from the other teams(or in other words, they won’t be giving/getting rides from the other team) the players will have to hitch or drive to the destination. The catch is, those on the Hitchhikers team must accept all offers for rides, while the Drivers must give rides to all hitchers they see by the side of the road. People won’t need to be voted off, since player elimination will sort of come naturally. If anyone arrives safely at the destination, they win. If there are muliple surviors, they’ll split the winnings.
So…what idea would you pitch to which network?
Start with an initial pool of contestants. About half of them are computer-technically-oriented folks, and the others are general-purpose managerial, secretarial, whatever. They have X weeks (x = number of contestants - 1) to design, develop, debug, and ship a massively complex eCommerce project. Completing it results in a massive cash bonus for everyone playing.
Each week, they have to do their assigned tasks to bring them to the final goal. And each week, the “least productive” member (as voted by the audience, representing the nebulous CEO) is “laid off” for cost-cutting reasons. The target’s tasks, naturally, must be picked up by the remaining team members.
Initially, things will be pretty copacetic, with folks forming teams and office alliances, and the occassional slacker getting the boot. But as time passes and people doing critical tasks are “laid off”, the remaining folks will be doing 14-hour days and be generally unhinged in their efforts to make the deadline.
Who will stay? Who will go? Who will become unhinged? And will the final deliverable actually work? Find out next time on … “The Dot-Bomb”!
(I’ll take a 10% cut of the gross, thankyouverymuch )
Each person is chosen by retail workers. The chosen will be the suckiest, rudest, most asshole customers they can find. All of said customers must work in a retail store for six months and be subject to abuse from OTHER retail workers. Retail workers are the only ones allowed to shop there. Each participants must smile politely and take the abuse and smile and go the extra mile to ensure that “The customer is always right.”
Oh…wouldn’t that be SWEET!
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