It was a worldwide success, but after years of repeating itself identically with only minor variations on the theme (practically only the places t where the contestants were locked up: house, farm, restaurant, bar...), it began to become repetitive and tiresome. And so they begin to evolve and 'branch out', let us say, into three strands.
The first is 'adventure reality' (pioneered by the historic Survivor): the contestants are in inhospitable places, in extreme conditions (desert islands, glaciers, high mountains, jungles, oceans...) where they are constantly pushed to their limits. It is still a very popular trend today, with formats such as The Summit, No Way Back and many others.
The second, more recent, is 'social reality' (the precursor of which was The Circle), in which the classic reality show hybridises with the dynamics of the socials from which it often draws its participants. One of the most recent examples is the Korean format The Influencer on Netflix.
The third is ‘psycho reality’, i.e. formats with a ‘psychological’ twist: discovering the traitors / saboteurs within a team, or who has the money or the power, who's lying... The forerunner of this trend was the historic The Mole, but it was The Traitors that established it worldwide, making it one of the hottest trends of the period.
There are many titles to remember (e.g. The Power - Qui A le Pouvoir, The Anonymous), but we will limit ourselves to mentioning the latest, Watch Your Back, recently announced by Talpa Studios, the result of a partnership between Talpa Studios itself and Kinetic Content (Love Is Blind). It is a format about which virtually nothing is known, but the few words that have been used to describe it ('a psychological game of trust and deception') place it clearly within this strand.
For now, this is the most advanced (and interesting) trend in reality. We will see what the next developments will be...
To read the other two articles about “the Spanish wave of formats”, with 2 adapted game shows and one exported talent show go to ESPRESSO
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