Recently we talked about the role setting plays in creating the semi-surreal ‘constructed reality’ vibes that are so fruitful for all kinds of social game design. The hellish Los Angeles “McMansion” is the perfect stage for stories of wealth and the uncanniness of celebrity, for example.
When it comes to unscripted television, setting is a component of theme. “Theme” is, of course, a literary term that I’ll use here loosely – what I mean is what’s the show about, and how is that theme expressed through its other components? Great reality shows use theme to create narrative tension, and to ensure harmony across every element of its production and design.
A common theme for reality shows is finding love. Within this, there are lots of sub-themes – for example, Too Hot To Handle is about finding love while remaining celibate; Perfect Match is about finding the one person in the group who is designated as your ideal partner; Love is Blind is about whether love can bloom from conversations that occur without seeing the other person.
Another popular theme is achieving consensus. Survivor and Big Brother are games entirely about balancing co-existence with competition, where alliance and social bonds are central to both formal and informal game mechanics. Popular twists on the consensus theme make agreement and alliance additionally complicated in some way – on The Traitors, two or more cast members have a hidden imperative to betray, and the others vote and argue about who to trust. On The Mole, the cast pursues a collective cash pot, while one hidden antagonist must try to thwart their efforts without being found out.
Countless shows are themed around a specific art or craft, competitions to find the best pastry chef, glass blower or fashion designer. But even in these games, the theme comes with expectations – there’s a unique energy in the dressing room of RuPaul’s Drag Race as different queens bring their emotional baggage to every challenge. On Hell’s Kitchen, contestants have basically signed up to be called a “donkey” by Gordon Ramsay at least once, a simulacrum of the intense pressure and toxic personalities that famously characterize restaurant work. The “theme” is not just the craft itself, but a simulation of the emotional landscape we expect to see around it.
Theme matters, because it ideally determines what kind of challenges are played, how the setting is chosen and styled, and importantly, it sets parameters for what kinds of characters should be cast and what objective(s) they are trying to achieve.
I really want to talk about Channel 4’s class-themed reality show Rise and Fall. The concept is fascinating: It’s set in a high rise, where a underclass of “grafters” lives in the basement in prison-like conditions with minimal food or water for showering, while the game’s lucky “rulers” enjoy cocktails and croissants in a penthouse – and determine how to assign grafters to challenges where they gamble with their bodies on chances to increase the prize pot.
At the end of each episode, the Rulers send home one of their own – usually the person who managed the personnel worst in the challenges, but not always – and the Grafters select someone from among their ranks to take the long elevator up to Rulership in the penthouse.
I really wanted to like this show. But unfortunately, it misses a lot of opportunities to see how its theme – class struggle – could be leveraged meaningfully in the games or the narrative design whatsoever. The challenges the Grafters have to perform to earn money are often intense and disgusting: Collecting swarms of live pests from fake rooms, licking seafood residue from dirty dishes, or tolerating submersion in garbage.
These kinds of things superficially nod at poverty and struggle, but ultimately make for a grotesque joke. Besides, do you as a viewer really want to watch people retching and struggling not to vomit as they lap at plates like dogs? This is about a third of every night’s programme, yet it tells us nothing about the characters and does not meaningfully evolve the power dynamics among the contestants.
Rise and Fall failed across most vectors to make a show that actually delivers on the promises of its theme (“feels more like Saw with a prize pot”). It quickly devolved into a bitter personality contest among the cast, where the simulation of class difference and its shifts played no actual role. The only way a grafter could leave the horrendous conditions was by group vote, but that meant only loose strategy and consensus determined who went upstairs – the shitty conditions did not much affect the players’ behavior, they did not have to take risks to rise, and so it fundamentally did not matter how they lived. Therefore, no story cohered in particular.
Part of this is because contestants are already coming to the situation with an existing class background and set of politics – in the UK, where Rise and Fall is made, you can actually largely tell someone’s financial background by the sound of their voice, so it’s weird to studiously ignore that. Reality shows are at their best when they explore what each contestant organically brings to the theme.
When money is the prize, it’s best if contestants all have a similar relationship to it. The US version of The Traitors had a key difference to the UK one, in that it cast professional celebrities, who did not need prize money, among ordinary strivers who desperately did. When the stakes aren’t equal, the theme fails.
So what would Rise and Fall look like with more harmony of theme? Perhaps it would be more interesting if people from upper-class backgrounds were cast as grafters, while working-class folk were the rulers. Or if all cast members were working class but had different attitudes to politics and what should be done with money and power.
Importantly, players need avenues to express those views that cause shifts in the cast’s social dynamics, so we shouldn’t waste space on challenges that nod superficially to theme, but do not allow players to engage with it narratively.
Challenges that don’t affect social dynamics are my pet peeve in unscripted! Next time, let’s talk about the important role challenge games play in this genre, and what makes for good and bad challenge design. I’m gonna really want the BBC and Channel 4 people to read this, so I can stop spending about a third of every promising program watching people I don’t know that well run around the woods for no clear reason.
Did you see Rise and Fall? Do you have favorite challenges on other shows? Please leave me some comments!
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I recently finished watching Outlast S2 and I hated it. But I only hated it towards the last stretch of the show - a couple of Texan men (Team Bravo) versus a team of five (Team Delta) people were finally ready to embark to complete their final task and win $1M. After being able to Outlast for some weeks, both teams had to do hike for a couple of hours on hard terrain and at the end light a fire. This is already slightly controversial to me as it changed the whole gameplay. But that's not even my issue.
When you heard the stories of Delta and what they were going to do with the money, they spoke about helping with the care of a mother with Alzheimer, having a knee replacement and a lot of very valid reasons for which you would compete for the prize. Bravo's plans were buying a second house, a second car, a second boat. None of their goals felt as genuine or as urgent as most of the other team's.
I understand that the prize money is not all for everyone, and being able to succeed in such a game is what's desirable for a lot of these survivalists. But this perception I had of them and their real needs made the ending of the show feel empty. This could be seen as the "underdog" team losing, but I feel there is more to this, potentially related to this social strata differences that are amplified in this context.
Rise and Fall sounds like a fascinating premise, and I’m retroactively frustrated that it didn’t live up to that potential. Clearly, some channel needs to hire you to design a better version.