Every year, new game shows emerge with the hope that it’ll be the next big thing. What I’ve noticed in the past few years especially is how difficult it is to find one that isn’t adapted from some other format. I know that there are only so many ways to splice competition, but I’m one of those who is eager to find a show that really captures that spirit. Even those like U.K. exports The Chase and The Weakest Link have become great fallback material because it’s less about the originality as it is the shock and awe of a contestant you’ve latched onto falling apart amid the struggle. To me, the biggest appeal of game shows is that anyone could be on them and to watch is a parasocial relationship. It’s why I watched way too much of The Last Straw even if it has the most limiting premise of any network game show I’ve seen in a long time.
That was the larger appeal of Snake Oil: a new Fox series that explores the world of wackadoo products. We’re coming off of a summer where the network was largely on autopilot, relying on their big hits like Beat Shazam, Don’t Forget the Lyrics, and Name That Tune. They’re all variations of the same idea and a very digestible summer watch. However, it made me concerned that they’d ever find an actual game show that had some panache. Given that their biggest competitor, ABC, has reduced a lot of their programming to putting the word “Celebrity” in front of it, 2023 has been a bad year for original game shows that could develop legs. Maybe it’s the lack of options, but it’s exactly what drew me to Snake Oil and… I’m very happy to report that it’s worth some investment.
For starters, it has a perfect elevator pitch that all great game shows should have. We’ve all been in a position where a salesman has attempted to sell us something that’s useless. I’ve personally formed a skepticism around certain infomercials as much for practicality as it is “Who would buy that?” Well, Snake Oil exists to explore a world of the absurd, where we’re on the verge of fiction and reality. Through each round, there’s a competition to determine what is real (“Real”) and what is fake (“Snake Oil”). Those with the best instinct win. Add in host David Spade whose whole personality has been about cutting out the nonsense and you have the potential for something greater.
It should be noted that I have only seen two episodes as of this publication. Even then, I find the show to already be breaking certain issues that I’ve had with contemporary primetime game shows. For starters, it’s one of the few to effectively use its hour-long format. Ever since Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, it has felt like every show has drawn out tension that is less gameplay and more a dramatic component that doesn’t really work. The biggest offender lately has been The Wall, which would service a 30-minute runtime but is bogged down by decision making that inadvertently makes the viewer impatient. Snake Oil by comparison is a show that has a premise so simple that it takes less than 30 seconds to describe each round. Even with the minimal increments of advancement, there’s a lot of time focused on studying the products and taking in all the evidence. One could argue that there are ways to speed it up, but that is to ignore the ways this feels like a satire of Shark Tank. We need time to doubt the practicality, question the validity, and determine whether there’s a benefit of the doubt in play.
Because that’s the thing. I recognize that Snake Oil is a very silly show and is sometimes designed with too many bells and whistles, but it plays very well into the crass nature of marketing. We don’t need most of the products on this show. The commercials, designed by the show’s actors known as “The Spade Brigade,” are often the broadest of comedy that feature a lot of scenery chewing. The brilliance of this is that sometimes it’s tonally familiar enough to those who watch enough commercials that you see their charm. Somewhere in the mediocre comedy is a call to action that makes sense. The question soon becomes whether the world is selling you something or the game show is. Your mileage may vary with how fun it is to second guess, but for me personally, certain rounds have left me in enough suspense to make the reveal shocking both for who wins the game, but also for how strange human ingenuity can get.
Shifting to gameplay, I will say that the only element that I’m not fully invested in is how the series designs its contestants. Most game shows have fallen back on hiring celebrities in some capacity, likely to draw in ratings. The best of them can work at breaking the tension with comedy, but overall, I think this is where game shows lose their mystery. I want shows where average people achieve the unthinkable. While Snake Oil feels as rooted in the citizen contestant as it is in the celebrity, there’s still a sense that celebrities are there more for comedy than any noticeable advantage. Snake Oil is not the worst example of this trend, though I can’t help but imagine what this could be if the series took a page from Fox’s other series Beat Shazam, and just allowed a couple who are in step with each other to take a swing at this madness.
As some critics have suggested, there’s also a sense that David Spade hasn’t fully found a groove with the series yet. It’s got the familiar hammy jokes to help transitions. However, I think he’s better than most give him credit. As a comedian known for sarcastically cutting through the nonsense, I think his personality fits with the material beautifully. He may be too low-energy, but maybe that’s part of a satirical subtext. All in all, he’s one of the better celebrity options that they could’ve gone with. It’s not nearly as flamboyant and over the top as others, which I’m grateful for. I don’t need Will Arnett (who is a producer here) going bug-eyed every time something bizarre happens. The show lacks that type of sensationalism and allows the products and contestants to speak for themselves.
The game is broken up into three rounds each defined as “Investments.” With a starting budget of $50,000, the contestants enter increasingly difficult rounds of product assessment. It should be noted that while it’s “hard,” I still think there’s a level of accessibility to the viewer that makes it feel like anyone could be on the show. We all have an instinct for what is real and fake. The only question from here is how willing you are to bet big and potentially win the game. Like the best of game shows, it takes one slip-up to lose it all. Because of that, there is a continually addictive quality that emerges only after taking time for an educated guess.
The first round, Initial Investment, is the most open-ended that the two sets of contestants can choose from. There are a few groups of options that they can choose from, each made up of a Real and Snake Oil option. Strategically choosing levels of difficulty need not apply as each will only choose one from the line-up. Once they do, they are given a sales pitch by a “salesman” followed by an infomercial acted out by The Spade Brigade. Following this, the contestant and their celebrity guest can negotiate and ask questions to the salesman that will hopefully enlighten their plausibility. This comes in the form of how a product is manufactured and sold, where and how much, and even the origins of the idea. It may sound a bit overly complicated, but when you’re trying to determine if deer meat-flavored whisky is real or not, it’s important to leave no ground uncovered. Given that some of these products are regional or even available only online or in one state, it makes the fight more difficult.
What’s probably the most exciting component of the closing stretch is the wagering. Based on the budget, each contestant is encouraged to bet money based on the level of confidence. With the audience cheering them on, there’s the hope of a high roller emerging with an insurmountable jackpot. The bigger the bet, the more intense the reveal becomes. What makes things even more exciting is the potential for “Poaching.” In this move, the opposing contestant is given the option to wager against what the active contestant is selecting (this includes their own chosen bet value). Provided that the active contestant gets “Snake Oil,” the Poacher can earn money. This is not a necessity, nor have I noticed any harmful side effects for the opposition Poaching during a Real pick. Similarly, I have not discovered what happens if anyone loses all their earnings as no contestant has yet to achieve it.
The Initial Investment is split between two segments to allow focus for each contestant. From there, The Big Investment marks the start of Round 2 which works similarly to The Initial Investment save for one caveat. The selection process is the same. Each contestant will see the presentations in full. However, they will only be offered the chance to interview one of the salesmen. This is all done before the gameplay starts, so the strategy better be sound. Again, it’s a move meant to encourage doubt and I’d argue it works depending on the plausibility of each item. I haven’t noticed a level of difficulty between the rounds, but at the same time, I think it just speaks to how ridiculous the market has become.
Following The Big Investment, The Final Investment emerges for the lucky contestant with the highest budget. In this round, a lot of the perks are taken away and the real fun begins. The contestant will choose to look at up to five products and determine which is Snake Oil. The value of the winnings increases with each variable. However, there will be less information provided. It’s up to one’s instinct to determine what is real and fake. Talking it out with their celebrity partner, they come to conclusions based on every logical element. Some of them are obvious, but there are bound to be at least two that have a similar level of usefulness. It’s here where the real trap is. Once the contestant selects the Snake Oil, everything is revealed in a great moment of tension. It’s rarely the first item and the most uncertain often fall in the final stretch. Even then, you want to see them win. You want to believe that they have the good instinct to pick right. Then again, you want to believe that some of these products are a lot faker than they are.
It's as simple as that. Snake Oil isn’t the most complicated show and that’s a good thing. It has a novel premise that I think speaks to a modern consumerist culture. So long as the writing staff keeps some creative minds around, I can see this series going into some interesting territories. While I accept that maybe it will run long enough that it will recycle too many ideas that make it predictable, for now, I think it has room to reflect how absurd the market currently is. I was fooled several times throughout the two episodes.
It's not the greatest game show ever made. I don’t know that it’s as timeless of a formula as others, but it has a familiar novelty that I think will carry it far. Right now, it’s an entertaining way to test how well you recognize fake products sold online. Some of them are obvious, but I promise there’s enough doubt built in to keep things interesting. So long as you judge it as a show about picking fact from fiction based on evidence, it’s actually a good time. Spade is likely to become more comfortable with the format as things evolve, and that can only seek to make it something greater. For now, it’s a front-runner for one of the best new game shows of 2023. There are not a lot of options to choose from, but even among them, this is far and away a fine-tuned racket.
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