After watching the premiere of J.J. Abrams' new show "Fringe" last night (quick review: it's no "Lost"), I caught the filler show that Fox threw up before the good ol' 10 o'clock news came on. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you "Hole in the Wall".
The whole premise of the show consists entirely of a moving wall coming towards spandex-clad contestants, who must make the appropriate shape of the hole with their bodies lest they get pushed into the pool of green ooze behind them. As you may have guessed it's based on a Japanese game show.
Honestly, I thought it was a joke. The contestants are dressed in spandex and bike helmets, the people in the audience are cheering with way too much enthusiasm, the announcer is way over the top, and to top it off each competing team has a theme, this episode was "The 6-packs" vs. "The beer bellies". Friends, Romans, Bloggers, here we have an example of the Decline of Western Civilization.
Have we really been reduced to this? Millions, nay, billions of years of evolution and we've come to Hole in the Wall? Maye it's a sign of Non-Intelligent Design. Ugh. Well Reuters has a nice write-up of the show. Their reporter sees the whole thing as parody, that's it not meant to be taken seriously. Ok, sure, but that doesn't excuse it from being terrible. I mean, if the hole in the wall segment was part of something larger, say an event on American Gladiators, at least we could say "Well it's just a silly event", but the thing is, the hole in the wall is the premise of the ENTIRE show. That's it, there's nothing else. Half an hour (and this was just the preview I saw, apparently the real show will be an entire hour) of people playing human Tetris.
The Reuters article is actually pretty good, especially this part: "Each challenge is prefaced with a dramatic electronic countdown and announcer Mark Thompson's triple-entendre intonation, "It's time to face the hole!" Hilarious. Hmm, who knows, maybe I need to give Hole in the Wall another chance?
4 comments:
Well, at least it seems better to me than the usual Wheel Of Fortune/Family Feud/Who Wants To Be A Millionaire "show that rewards mild but useless intelligence." At least with Hole In The Wall there doesn't seem to be any pretense of unique or innate skill on the part of the contestants.
I've watched clips of the Japanese version of this on Youtube. The thing I don't like is that some of the shapes are obviously impossible to get through and some are very easy. It's phony.
Umm LE, it's a show about people moving their bodies through a hole in the wall. Did you not read that part? Am I the only one who sees the inanity?
Sure, your version is inane, but does it have c-list celebrities and a place on BBC1 Saturday primetime to boast too? Because the UK one which is periodically terrifying me does.
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