5) No cash prize + minimal backstabbing
When the first season of Survivor burst onto our screens in the year 2000, everyone was hooked; the drama, the pain, the competition, it was all there. I can remember as a young lad watching episode after episode from a recorded cassette a friend gave my family. I was completely enamored by it (as everyone else was). The finale for that first season drew a whopping 52 million viewers. That's crazy.
Then, slowly but assuredly, we realized that there was something very wrong with Survivor. While as an audience it gave us everything we wanted in a story, it had to sacrifice the best qualities of mankind to get there. Putting 15 people on an island, telling them to fend for themselves and telling them the winner gets tons of money is a sure-fire way to make good television, but it is also the fastest way to turn ordinary human beings into backstabbing Machiavellians. Once the initial 'wow' factor cooled, we realized we were one slippery step away from creating our own Hunger Games, and we pulled back. Survivor concluded its 31th season last December. Its finale drew 6 million viewers.
While any competition that involves an 'every man for himself' mechanic is bound to create distrust and doubt, The Quest is different in that it takes place in a world that is looking for a winner that is above those things. The Quest tells a story that involves its contestants working with one another, not against. It doesn't force a contestant from backstabbing or forming alliances, but neither is the game built in such a way that creates major incentives to do so; it is very much a level playing field. Like all things, however, the contestants must decide for themselves.
The first time the paladins decide who will be banished there is a discussion that takes place about how they will make the decision. Adria tells her fellow paladins,
"You're choosing who's going to be the one true hero or help get the true hero to the end of this quest. Think about it that way."
Andrew responds to her:
"I see it now completely differently. I used to see it as 'oh, I want to be the hero. I need to get all the big dogs out'. But now I see it as, like, I want all the big dogs in, 'cause they're the ones who are going to help me, or any of us, become the one true hero."
Wow, where do you hear that in reality TV? The Quest is a story about who's the best of the contestants, not who's the most manipulative, who's most worthy, not who's the luckiest, and as a TV-watcher that's something I can appreciate.
I’ve already touched in last week’s blog about The Quest’s intro, but if I’m being honest the finale is even better. Most contestant TV-shows end with the victor rightfully claiming some illustrious prize while his fellow competitors lay low in the dust, defeated by a mixture of despair and exhaustion. There is no reward for second place; you are either the winner or a stepping-stone he steps on on his way to victory. If you are eliminated early, you are of little value.
Again, The Quest turns this supposed notion of what contest reality-TV is about on its head. Sure, this show has a winner and by definition losers, but in the context of the story they were all winners. They were all needed in the end to defeat Verlox; it was a team effort and could not have been done without all of them. The Quest goes out of its way to tell its audience that no matter when a paladin was banished, whether she was the first or the last, they were important, both as a person and in the context of the story.
As far as fantasy stories go the narrative to The Quest is predictable. Most of what happens did not catch me by surprise. I saw the Vizier’s betrayal, the Queen getting poisoned, and the capture of the castle coming from at least a mile away. The ending, on the other hand? I was blown away. That they would bring all the contestants back for the climax in such an exciting and creative way when other shows focus solely on the winner's triumphs speaks to what kind of show The Quest is.
PS: The paladins are obviously not professional actors or stunt doubles, but those action scenes are pretty impressive. From watching it, you get the feeling you’re taking part in an actual battle; you feel the excitement the grit, the adrenaline. Kudos to the trainers, the editors, and the contestants themselves for making such an engaging climax.
3) Imagination + Spontaneity = Good TV
It is now fairly easy if you have the money to come up with an imaginative fantasy or sci-fi world filled with dazzling special effects. The problem with this is that most viewers don’t want to see spectacular sights and sounds if there’s nothing else behind them. Special effects all on their own actually getting boring pretty fast. Audiences want to feel things, they want to fall in love, they want to connect with the characters, and most importantly they want to feel human. Creating good stories in the sci-fi and fantasy genres is now as hard as ever because writers now have the low hanging fruit of creating of eye-catching special effects rather than focusing on engaging characters scenes and risk the possibility of getting a headache. A lot of films don’t feel real because they’re not; they use blue screens, green screens, CGI, and any other tool they can get their hands on to create whatever cool explosion they want.
The Quest is exciting because it creates the best of both worlds. The setting is in Everrealm, a mystical and fantastical where anything can happen, a fresh slate for producers, writers, actors, special effects people, you name it to do whatever they want creatively with the show. I mean, the producers of freakin’ Lord of the Rings produced this show! If anyone knows how to create an exciting fantasy story it’s these guys.
In addition to this army of special effects and technical know-how though, The Quest is also engaging on a human level. This is because (duh!!) they use real people who are reacting to these things for the first time. It’s organic in a way the best writer on the planet could never be with a script. No one, and let me reiterate, no one knows what is going to happen in The Quest, and we as an audience feel that. It feels real because it is, and that makes for good tv.
Shondo Blades is brilliant. I feel tempted to stop right there, but I won’t even though I know I probably won’t do the man justice. He is so funny, so nuts, and so competitive that if I needed to give you only one reason to watch The Quest he would probably be it. He’s so athletic and such an obvious choice of winner, you almost feel in your bones he won’t be (we all know how contestant reality-TV shows work right?), but you know he’ll get close and that it will be a darn fun ride along the way.
What makes Shondo such an amazing contestant is how intense he is. No matter what he’s doing, however miniscule or ridiculous a situation he might be put in, he attacks the problem with 110% of his energies. He’s so honest and savvy in his own way, and the fact that he never deviates from his values during the course of the show makes it hard not to respect him.
As my brother remarked on him, “It’s like he’s got one mode.” Shondo himself agrees to this diagnosis in one episode claiming that he, “…moves at only one speed. Shondo Speed. That’s supersonic, baby!”
This may seem like a dumb thing to say, but being a hero, or accomplishing anything of note really, is hard work. It requires patience, skill, and dedication, to an extent greater than most people realize or are willing to admit. It's not so much about talent as it is focus, a refusal to give up, and the ability to learn from your mistakes. Whether your goal is to raise a family, advance your career, or something as simple as learning to play an instrument, having the mentality that you will see it out to the end is vital to whether you succeed or not.
This is the case because inevitably obstacles are going to be thrown in your path that are going to make reaching your goal hard. You're going to get in arguments with your spouse or kids, you're going to be over-looked for promotion sometimes, and there's going to be one day where you're so frustrated trying to get this one stupid song right that you feel like bashing your guitar over somebody's head. That's life, unfortunately.
To reach your goal, which I hope includes being a hero, you have to have the desire to push through hard times, and we see a little bit of that in The Quest. Now obviously, The Quest is a TV-show; there was no actual land in danger of being overrun by monsters, no kingdoms to be saved, no hero to come into his own. However, that doesn't mean the show doesn't have anything to say about becoming one. The contestants struggle just like we do in real life. We see them get hurt, they get tired, they get sad, and some of them probably give up a little along the way. We as an audience see them have to fight on a physical and emotional level to get the job done, to keep going. It's takes a toll on the paladins, and some of them ultimately don't make it.
Other contestants, however, grow and develop over the course of show. No matter how poorly they might be doing in a particular challenge, they never back down and never give up. They persevere beyond all odds to the point we are asking ourselves, 'how are they still on this show? They should've been gone three episodes ago'. It's kinda a bit like how an actual hero is born, don't you think? Though it wasn't real life, The Quest teaches us a little bit about what it takes and how much work it is to become a hero, and in my view that is the first step to becoming one.
Well, I hoped I convinced you to watch The Quest. Next time I will probably be discussing the new cinematic experience everyone is sure to be talking about; Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Has the forced awakened? Find out my thoughts next time on Sci-Fi Reflections.