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The Traitors: Canada (2023)
The Traitors Canada's producers are scum
First, i wanted to say that i've discovered the entire "The Traitors" franchise 5 or 6 months ago.
I started with The Traitors Australia S01 and S02 (great show great host). And then watched S01 of The Traitors UK, US, NZ and now Canada.
Second, i remembered Karine Vanasse (the host) from the US ABC show "Revenge" with Madeleine Stowe and Emily VanCamp. Karine did a great job as "Margaux LeMarchal".
Regarding her work as host on The Traitors, i have nothing bad to say frankly. In fact, for what seems to be her first hosting gig, i think she did a fairly good job. If i had to rank the hosts of all the
Traitors versions i've seen, i would rank her 3rd out of 5 (which is not bad at all).
1. Actor Rodger Corser, Traitors AU (hosted with flair and humour)
2. Actor Alan Cumming, The Traitors US (hosted with finesse, and nobody can"t resist a Scottish accent really)
3. Actress Karine Vanasse, The Traitors CAN (hosted with a little bit of "espièglerie" and panache)
4. The host of The Traitors UK... annoying
5. The host of The Traitors NZ... pompous and obnoxious
Regarding the show itself, i'm really irritated by what the producers of TT CANada did at the end.
To obtain the outcome they wanted, they blatantly and overtly screwed over the last remaining Faithfuls.
I found that really disgusting. I'm not naive to think that producers of others reality shows don't do that kind of things. They do for sure, but most seem to do it behind the scenes by (trying to) influence players during interviews and other interactions among other things.
But changing an established rule right after the very last roundtable voting, to prevent the banished player (Travon) from saying whether he was a Faithful or a Traitor was complete and utter BS.
Not being able to reveal that he was a Faithful, not only deprived him of that small satisfying/cathartic feeling when Faithfuls are wrongly banished, but more importantly it left doubts in the minds of the
remainings Faithfuls. Which was the goal of that producers's move, in order to help the last Traitor left in the game.
I do like to watch shows from the The Traitors franchise, but i also do recognise the flaw in the concept.
The Traitors know who they are. The Faithfuls do not. Therefore for the Faithfuls this game is a constant witch hunt, whereas for the Traitors it's a cake walk if they avoid doing or saying something stupid that could unmask them.
To me, the concept of this show would be equivalent of one where two group of contestants would play paintball inside a completely dark warehouse. The first group has night-vision goggles, the second one has nothing.
Doesn't really seems fair, does it? Yeah... that's kinda The Traitors concept.
I'm sorry but nobody should be helped by production (Traitors nor Faithfuls) and Traitors certainly don't need help given the massive advantage they have over the Faithfuls.
The way the producers helped Mike in order to have a Traitor win the first season was effing disgusting.
I hate production manipulation of any kind. I find it really shameful. It's also disrespectful to everyone.
The contestants who spent time and efforts, and the viewers as well.
Needless to say, i won't watch an eventual season 2 of The Traitors Canada.
007: Road to a Million (2023)
Good show but could have been so much better
I've watched the eight episodes of 007: Road to a Million and i have mixed feelings about the show.
I knew what i was about to whatch. I knew going in it was going to be a James Bond themed reality-show. So no surprise here.
I'm a reality-shows enthusiast, and i've watched the whole Janmes Bond collection (and some JB movies more than once). So i was eager to start binging.
First, the cinematography, the visuals with all the panoramic, aerial shots were just fantastic. I loved the intro, and the Bond tunes throughout the episodes.
That's the really positive thing about the show.
On the other hand, what i thought was no so positive was the "competition" side. At first it was a bit strange to see a contestants filmed with "movie cameras"
insted of "TV cameras". But after some time you adapt, and it becomes normal. What i thought was a bit underwhelming, was the slow pace of the "competition" segments,
and the fact that each team of contestants were on separate journeys and didn't even know about each other. And by extension, didn't compete against one another.
I was like "ok... that's a concept let's see if it works...". Unfortunately i don't think it did overall...
The people who filmed and created this show are movie professionals. They did what they know how to do. Film locations and actions sequences beautifully,
coach contestants like they were actors etc.. But watching the show they obviously didn't know how to do TV per se...
Therefore, they did the bare minimum regarding the competiton element, and kept it super simple wwith teams of contestants not interacting
with each other, and send each of them on separate journeys. Ok, but if you do that, it's going to be difficult to keep a high level of interest from the viewers
if even the "action segments" are slow paced, and the only drama/suspenseful moments you can rely on are those with the host waiting 3 hours to tell the
contestants whether their answers are correct or not. That's a bit light i think...
I hope the producers will change (or at least tweak) the concept of the show for an eventual season 2. Like ditching the quizz (please... the quizz stuff is just...lame), like hiring several TV producers/crews,
and embracing the competition aspect (whitch is the essence of any real drama based reality-tv show really).
I'm not talking about contestants doing hand-to-hand combat or anything. But something like teams of two competiting in the same country (in different locations perhaps)
, at the same time, on the same (or similar) type of James Bond movies based or inspired challenges (physical or mental). And the team who did the worst will not get to
move on to the next country and the next set of challenges, or will get some sort of penality for exemple. I don't know... something like that... I'm not a movie/tv producer but i feel like
this would be a major improvement from season 1.
And also, i may be wrong but i felt like very few of the contestants knew they were on a JB themed show. If i recall correctly, only the Bone brothers made a reference to JB when they
had to retrieved their briefcase underwater, and one of them suggested that the 3 digits code for the padlock could be 007. But beside them, no one made any mention of James Bond.
I don't know... if i sat in the Aston Martin DB5 (or a replica of course) featured in Goldfinger, Thunderball or No Time to Die... i wouldn't know what to do with myself... Seriously.
If i was flown to Italy, and walked on the Gravina bridge where of one of greatest JB action sequences took place... i would freak the eff out. Hahaha...
And that, just to name a couple of the several JB related things that were referenced during the show. But the contestant didn't seem to react to any of them.
Of course, not everyone is a movie buff, and not everyone have seen all the JB movies... i get it. But it wouldn't be a bad thing to encourage the contestants of a James Bond themed
reality-show to actually watch some James Bond movies before filming the show. Just to have some sort of reactions during the show. I'm just saying...
Anyway... i really enjoyed some aspects of 007: Road to a Million but i felt that it could have been soooooooooo much better. So i think 6 stars is about right.
Time Zone (2022)
Decent show but host too annoying
I agree with what has been said about the concept. It is actually good. It's the (only) positive thing about the show, and it's the reason i watched the whole season.
Now for the negative, to me it's the host who is really annoying. She talks too damn much, and what i find really irritating is the way she tries to influence the viewer's opinion about situations, contestants's personnality or gameplay etc... with her commentary.
I have a hard time with Reality-TV hosts doing that kind of things. If editing wasn't enough to steer viewers a certain way, she had to pile on with annoying/unnecessary biased commentaries.
In my opnion, a host should just present challenges, explain the rules, explain how the game will play out during the season, and should remain neutral regardless of the situation.
Also, this show looked like it was on a budget a little bit. That's not a negative of course. The most important thing about a show is a good concept, and this one definitively has that. But i wouldn't mind watching an American or Australian version of this show which would certainly have a higher production value.
Yeah....so, 4 stars out of 10 is about right i think.
Million Dollar Island (Australia) (2023)
Million Dollar Scam
I started to watch this show on replay because it was "Survivor-esque"(even though i don't watch Survivor anymore since it jumped the sharks a long time ago... anyway). The premise seemed intriguing, and i wanted to see how having 100 contestants would play out.
I'm not gonna lie, i fast-forwarded a bunch of confessionals, because a lot of characters were just obnoxious, and the host was meh at best.
The most annoying thing was the scam they played on the contestants (and the viewers of course). They went from "One player will win $1Million" to "Contestants are playing for a share of $1Million".
When the host annonced that only the Final 3 players would win money and have a share of the Million, i still thought there would be a final challenge.
A challenge where the Finalists, depending on the results, would have the option to play it decent and keep the amount reprented by all the bracelets they had. Or play it backstab-ey and make a play to steal their fellow finalists's bracelets for example.
That way one player could have ended up winning $1M... or have the option at least. Something like that...I dunno.
That final challenge could have been a skill challenge, or a trivia on how well the finalists knew their departed fellow castmates for example. It would have made sense, since the host kept repeating " in this game relationships could bring you fortunes".
So, you win that Final challenge and you can decide that everybody keep their share, or you decide to be a di*k and steal the two others finalists's money...
I honestly thought the season would end up this way, or have a variation of that kind of ending. Maybe not the best one, but at least it would have been WAAAAY more interesting that that "Deal Or No Deal" garbage ending that only showed how cheap and scammy the network/producers were.
Good luck finding 100 contestants for Season 2 after the shameless scam/complete joke that was Season 1. But judging by the TV ratings, a Season 2 seems unlikely...