Sunday, July 01, 2007

Hey, haven't I seen this stuff before?

On Friday RTL, a German TV-station aired, a new show - and one day later the online-part of a German magazine had to comment on it for being "dangerous", "humiliating" and of "low quality". All of this is true, but the format as a such surely wasn't invented by RTL.


I have to admit it - I watched part of the show, too. And I had a scaring case of "Déjà vu" while I did so. While the setting surely was exploiting the current "Pirates of the Caribbean" hype, the games were familiar in a scaring way.

I have seen such a show - in a different setting - before: "Takeshi's Castle", a Japanese show aired by a sports channel in Germany years ago. That was quite a shock ... normally the TV-stations in Germany steal their ideas from the Netherlands or the USA, not from Asia.


Whoever takes part in a show like that, knows what he (or she) is getting into. They're all grown-ups and can decide for themselves, so what's all comment really about? Just to show that "Der Spiegel" is better than RTL?


I wonder what's worse: Producing a show in a format that was successful in other countries before or criticising the show without real reason. Nobody expects an entertainment show to have depth and people have been humiliated in German television before.

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