As a writer, it is pretty much my job to create worlds from scratch, making every small detail feel lived in. I have to learn to make you care for what you’re looking at. After decades of looking at the letter “G,” what can I write that possibly makes you see it in a new and inventive way? I honestly don’t know. That is why I keep trying, hoping that one day I will have a breakthrough and you’ll all wear shirts with a giant “G” on them, proudly knowing that in some ways I revolutionized 1/26th of the alphabet.
That is pretty much how I feel about game shows. On one hand, they are the backbone of modern entertainment. Since the invention of the radio, there has been a quest to make regular people compete against each other, answering basic trivia for the chance of glory. Most of them will get a cash prize and a few days of wandering around town being “that guy.”
There is something exhilarating about the idea of game shows that I have been trying to understand for years now. I have wanted to crack the formula and make a show that will withstand the test of time or at least one that will last for a few episodes and get people to invest in this idea. Game shows are the great unifier. No matter how smart or dumb you are, it’s the chance to appear on the world stage and present a side of you that we all have. We all crave competition, and the feeling of getting a question right is the greatest feeling in the world.
Sure, Jeopardy! perfected the formula decades ago, but I love watching people try to get even halfway to a satisfying alternative. At a certain point we’re all back to trying to reinvent “G,” and once you know what it looks like, you’ll not be able to see an average one and think that you’re looking at a masterpiece. Sure, it’s got enough value that pulls you in, but you’re still underwhelmed that you’re stuck with something you’ve seen before. It’s sad to say, but they all can’t be Holey Moley or 500 Questions.
To be honest, I was going to write this entry on Don’t last week when it first premiered. There was always something alluring about it that made me want to see what madness they had concocted. However, I found myself reaching the ending and was hesitant to write the first word. What could I say besides “That was it?” I didn’t want the show to just be watching poor families eating ghost chili peppers on a treadmill. There had to be something more that drew you into the show.
The issue with Don’t is that you can’t really sell it without featuring the tagline. Every time there is a Chiron promoting it, it wasn’t just saying “COMING UP NEXT: DON’T.” You had to have a whole line with an exhaustive text saying: “FROM THE TWISTED MIND OF RYAN REYNOLDS.”
Which fine. I get that new shows need to advertise with their best foot forward. Who wouldn’t want to watch a game show from Reynolds? After all, he reclaimed some fame for his appearances in the Deadpool (2015) movies, finding a way to break the fourth wall with pop culture references, talking to the camera, and chimichangas. Love him or hate him, he had a defined brand of post-modernism that people have latched onto ever since. His Twitter account is nothing but a landmine of buffoonery. Since game shows are by some definition fun, you’d have to guess that a guy known for being fun would bring with him a show that was… fun.
Okay, that wasn’t the most inspiring conclusion, but that’s pretty much what you’re going to get from Don’t. It was going to be run through the Reynolds prism, or at least featuring A.D.R. from him talking over host Adam Scott as he goes through a series of games that are wild and out there, ranging from trivia to physical obstacles that tie into humanity’s love of watching a simpleton get whacked in the head.
But what would make me write “That was it?”
Don’t is simultaneously one of the most inspired takes on game shows and also one of the most deceptive. The reason that this needs to be sold as coming from Reynolds’ twisted mind is that he’s often a bigger draw than any one element on the show. Oh sure, he doesn’t actually appear on camera at any point, but you are constantly aware that he is there, working some switchboard behind the scenes.
It may not be the most anarchic thing ever put on camera. It still follows an hour-long structure with regular act breaks. However, this is what ABC wants to sell as “twisted.” They can’t stray too far off script, however, because you know this is a family-sanctioned channel owned by Disney. So while there’s one moment where referencing the internet being full of “Russian bots” leads to a momentary break in transition, we all know that it will return to a regular format. The joke is funny, but only in that it was a minor inconvenience to the game show format.
I suppose I should ask myself if I really want a game show that is “twisted.” I guess? I mean, I did watch Dog Eat Dog, The Chamber, and Fear Factor regularly enough to know what that could mean within a traditional format. If this is a “twisted” show, let me just say that the definition has been neutered greatly.
I’m not saying that they need to make things seem like these harrowing challenges. After all, The Chamber was a nightmare. You had to answer questions while consumed in extremely hot or cold temperatures. As you can guess, that didn’t end well.
Though if we’re being honest, “twisted” shows that live up to the title have limited shelf lives. After the initial draw, you’re only weeks away from something going horribly wrong. It’s a dreadful liability that I’ve grown less interested in as I grew older. So to have Don’t not be “twisted” is a relief to me, though I still would love to admit that what it did instead was the least bit as revolutionary as its vanguard-celebrating advertisements would have you believe.
Not only did the show embrace tepid reviews going into its second week, but it only confirmed a lot of things that I assumed from the first week.
The gist of the show is that you don’t do things. In the case of “don’t play in the house,” it involves throwing a ball to someone upside down while they swing in front of a house setting. While its novel to have every catch have a monetary value to them, it’s only a smaller tool of what makes this show “twisted.”
No, you may actually want to watch this with the sound ON, because otherwise, it will just be your conventional wacky game show. There is nothing wrong with it and I do find Don’t to be highly entertaining on its own merits, but most of the creative aspect has been put into the invisible seams that are holding the show together.
It’s a show that requires observation to fully appreciate. As is tradition to most game show formats, it involves a family competing for $100,000. However, there are nonstop gags flying around in the lead-up to any actual game. The Chiron doesn’t just give names, but comically insult them with these playful jabs. If Deadpool was to run a milquetoast game show, that would be stuff he did. You almost expect a big red marker to pop out and draw all over the screen. Instead, we get weird interstitials, such as the ongoing life of a “Don’t Button,” that includes wanting his father to show up to one of his tapings.
Fair enough. There’s a certain level of lowbrow humor here, such as borrowing QVC-style promotional stills to fake-sell props used in the show. Other times Reynolds will create bumpers that involve jokes about the family’s lack of trust in each other. In one case he even calls somebody a flat-earther. Is that true? I have no idea, but let’s hope that guy’s got a sense of humor.
The games are creative enough to keep the audience entertained. Even the family reaction has some value in the segment. It’s just that one has to ask themselves how much Ryan Reynolds they are willing to put up with. Because of the joke structure, you’re often left with a ton of padding in running time, making any conventional form desired. It’s true that this helps to compensate for any shortcoming that this show has, but I just wish that there was some faith in the half-hour format that ABC stopped embracing after 8 PM. Even Jeopardy! had to go full-hour when it reached primetime.
Is the show “twisted”? Not entirely. What would make it fun is if they had random developing narratives with the crew members that happened throughout the season. Nothing major, but like maybe demote a cameraman or a disgruntled script-writer. You know, something that truly played with the structure of a game show. While it’s fun to have the yucks scattered throughout, it does feel like there’s going to be a point where that element stops being fun.
Then what will there be left to celebrate? Mostly an average game show. Sure it has the fun, eccentric landscape of options (I’m not even sure if we’ve seen them all), but I wish that I was as enamored by every bit as Reynolds seems to be. Some of them work, but I do fear that we’re going to see the D-Level jokes by the second or third season if the show lasts that long.
Who knows, maybe Reynolds will lose interest and Don’t maybe don’t exists (that felt dirty). For now, it achieves what most ABC games shows of the summer do: they entertain. They don’t require a lot of commitment, and that’ll get you through a night. Sure you wish for something as invigorating as Holey Moley, but they can’t all be winners. Sometimes you just get host Adam Scott asking banal questions to “we know we’re on TV” type of families who aren’t always that endearing either.
Does this change how you see the letter “G”? Not really. Fourth wall-breaking is way too common for this to feel like a vanguard of any kind. It may be fun, but it really isn’t “twisted.” It’s a game show that really only feels like Reynolds’ work in hindsight, never really relying on the contestants to drive the humor. That’s the issue. Jeopardy! is great because of the contestants’ enthusiasm and ability to adapt to a moment. Their spontaneity isn’t something you get every night. With Don’t, you’re just getting PG-Rated Deadpool. That’s fine, but I wish it was so much weirder than it ended up being. Then again if it was that, it wouldn’t be on ABC.
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