This week we talked about game shows and all it encompasses. Something that really blew my mind was just how broad the term “game show” is, from stuff you’d expect like Family Feud to stuff like Wipe Out and even Shark Tank. 

The class discussion gave me a chance to look back on all the shows I’ve watched from reality tv to cooking competitions and pick apart the elements that bring them under the umbrella of being considered a ‘game show’. For example, even though ‘Survivor’ doesn’t have the stereotypical elements of a game show like ‘Jeopardy!’ It still has components that characterise it as part of the genre; the social game that contestants play amongst themselves, the immunity challenges that each team and player partakes in and small personal challenges like finding an idol to save oneself. 

In this week’s reading, we see Holmes bring up Nick Laceys list of the genre’s repertoire of elements being setting, characters, narrative, iconography and style. With the example of Survivor, we can see how these different elements slot themselves into the show and even other shows of the “reality” genre.

We also discussed how some shows were able to adapt to international markets and how their formats may or may not have changed to do so, an example of a fairly franchised show would be Masterchef and how in the US versions we see them lean more into the drama between contestants, compared to the AUS version with cooking skills as the leading theme.

I personally thought this was interesting especially when we think about pitching shows in the future and how they could be formatted and angled to suit certain audiences and their needs/ wants.