Foreign series of Survivor are still popular here, but our Czech version is a complete disaster this year. It already started with bad casting and those behind it should go do other work.
Last summer, producer Kateřina Brož stated in an interview for tv.nova.cz:
Casting is quite complex. He goes through several tests and encounters. These are health tests, physical tests and psychological tests.
I think every participant has to have determination because that is what keeps you going and saves you many times in that game,
she added.
For several weeks this year, viewers watched as one contestant after another was eliminated from the game. They forgot their determination at home. One was homesick, another went there thinking she didn’t have that much time off, and another determined competitor was bitten under the eye by a mosquito and remembered she had children at home.
Physical and psychological tests failed miserably.
The producer further stated that the celebrities who sign up for Survivor do not need to be persuaded and are determined to succeed.
Although the audience is still clamoring for mere mortals to be in the game and celebrities to stay at home, they keep cramming in there to gain visibility for a few days and then rush home to spend another six months giving out interviews about who had what with whom and how it actually works in the “roughest reality show”.
Bottom line – they just bring down the show and make it clear that the determination to succeed and win is just a sham. In addition, everyone who stayed to watch this year’s strange show, no longer notices who is a celebrity and who is an ordinary contestant. The meaning of a privileged group probably disappeared a long time ago.
A boring plot forces the audience to notice the little things
This year, viewers share much more on forums and social networks small details that probably shouldn’t be in the reality show, which is supposed to be the roughest in the world. And the cameras don’t really show that much of the contestants’ lives, because most of the time is taken up by annoying parkours and cutting coconuts by the fire.
The contestants have a better background when it comes to hygiene, their teeth are still shining, their hair is washed, they are clean-shaven, and in regular shots from the camp, some have perfect manicures. Sometimes some contestants get their nails so shiny that they look like they’re painted. To give the impression of “debauchery”, the contestants have steamed hems on their clothes and some slits on their T-shirts. During the competitions, everyone suddenly has dirty nails, as if they had just returned from a brigade where they harvested potatoes by hand. Physical exhaustion is supposed to be emphasized by the tapes that they are covered with.
The tension in the camps is so vividly recorded that it is evident that the rumors of a scripted game are not far from the truth. And above all, the viewer is manipulated by the montage that gets on the screens. So everyone plays their role and sometimes it doesn’t make much sense, as in the case of the vote on Márty’s departure. Moreover, he himself was not surprised at all.
All the while, a premeditated plot is pushed to the audience and the contestants play their roles. Perhaps the only one who sometimes ran away and fell out of the role was Jack, who probably doesn’t understand Czech very well and the moment the cameras turned on and the crew stopped speaking English to him, he was lost. He vented this with his behavior.
I’m probably running out of ideas
Some scenes of normal life in the camp are really strange. For example, the dramatic event that Tomáš was supposed to play when it started to rain didn’t go very well. He was offered a raincoat and dry clothes, but he refused. He probably sat “under the eaves” because no one got as much rain as he did. Eventually, the tropical rain stressed him out so much that he had to leave the island to rest in the dry. The consequences of hypothermia were literally overwhelming. The next day his sinuses were blocked and he had a headache. What if he got the flu!
Another almost funny scene occurred when it came to Yenifer having two pillows, or when it came to someone having three blankets. This is called surviving in really harsh conditions.
Crabs have moved to the island. Well, it was more like someone dumped a crate of these creatures in there so that Jack could show how he was taking care of the tribe and hunting them. According to the way Jana fought the capture, it was the first time these creatures had appeared there. Moreover, in the past it was said that the type of crabs that live there are not edible.
Not fishing is also interesting. What do our heroes do all day long, except bring a few dry branches and someone slips them a coconut? Apparently there are no fish. But no one even tries to hunt them. At the same time, in one of the previous years it was quite a popular activity and the contestants even had some traps built to catch them.
Survivors on the island don’t even have to fight against intrusive insects. Unlike previous years, they are probably well protected by repellent. Who wants to see unsightly chapped cheeks or legs, right? It’s also clear from the skin condition of some of the contestants, who are completely tan-free even after fifty days, that they found a way to protect themselves from the sun’s rays on the desert island.
At the time when military service was compulsory, the male population would probably manage the stay without any problems. Today’s moms are upset about getting wet or not getting breakfast in bed. Mikýř bragged about taking a survival course, but he couldn’t start a fire at first. In the end, it didn’t even work with flint. So it was probably a crash course in internet survival. A large part of the contestants probably spent their childhood holidays in the middle of a block of flats or at home at the computer, because even a few stays at summer camps would have hardened them a bit.
We probably won’t see any change for the better this year, so we can only hope that next year will be better. The bar is not very high.
