Mark Burnett

TV Review: CBS Jumps Into Employment Reality with ‘The Job’

BrianTT — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 11:42:51 -0500

CHICAGO – Is it odd to anyone else that there’s an entire subgenre of reality TV shows — we could call ‘em employment reality — about people trying to find work? There’s “The Apprentice,” “Shark Tank,” “Fashion Star,” and even “Project Runway” & “Top Chef” are essentially job interviews. It makes sense that we would someday get to “The Job,” where people try to find employment with major companies in front of a live studio audience.

Television Rating: 3.5/5.0

The concept is so simple that it’s kind of remarkable someone didn’t come up with it early. It’s a mini-“Apprentice,” as top-tier professionals compete for a job but do so not through challenges but mostly through the power of their own personalities. Introductions, first-impressions, on-site interviews before the show, quizzes about the history of the company, and rapid-fire questions from the potential employers — Welcome to “The Job.” Is it any good? Sorta. It meets the Friday night standard of low expectations and fits the same niche as “Shark Tank” in that it’s easy to root for people who have had trouble making their dreams come true. Mark Burnett (“Survivor,” “The Apprentice”) knows reality TV and I expect “The Job” to be a modest hit for CBS on Saturday nights. It’s forgettable and nowhere near ground-breaking but it’s a likable hour of TV and sometimes that’s all you want after a long week at (or looking for) work.

The Job
Photo credit: CBS

In the premiere sent for review, five candidates compete for a job at The Palm in New York City. They come from varied backgrounds, have very different looks, and unique approaches to the interview process. One woman seems overly nervous, trying to entertain as much as inform. Another gentleman doesn’t think it’s a problem that the bulk of his work history comes from a vegan restaurant when he’s applying for a job at one of the most famous steakhouses in the world.

The Job
Photo credit: CBS

“The Job” takes place in rounds. In one, it’s just the introduction process. Another is a quiz that Palm employees need to know. And the candidates were all put through their paces the night before at the restaurant (which is kind of a cheat given that it’s something that typically doesn’t happen in the interview process) so the employers could discern who doesn’t recognize the CEO of the company when he comes to the front of the restaurant and who doesn’t know how to gracefully pour a glass of wine. After each round, a candidate is eliminated, until a job is offered at the end. During the process, three competing companies (three other NY eateries) have the capability to steal a candidate, offering them a job before the Palm can.

Future episodes will include Cosmopolitan Magazine, Major League Soccer, Epic Records, Zynga, Live Nation, Gilt, and Viceroy Hotel Group.

“The Job” really does feel like a reality TV “Greatest Hits” in the way it borrows from shows like “The Apprentice” and “Shark Tank” but I don’t mean that as harshly as it may sound. Not all TV, certainly not on Friday nights, needs to break new ground. The show is well-produced, well-hosted (by Lisa Ling), and generally entertaining. I found myself cynical at first but then wondering who I would hire from the employer position and what I would say if I was up on stage. That’s all we want from a show like this one — a bit of involvement as you come down from a hard week at work and, hopefully, give thanks that you’re not job interviewing on national TV.

“The Job” is hosted by Lisa Ling and premieres on CBS on Friday, February 8, 2013 at 7pm CST.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

TV Review: ABC’s ‘Expedition Impossible’ Offers Boring Journey

BrianTT — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:50:30 -0400

CHICAGO – Have all reality shows merely become hybrids of programs that came before? Doesn’t it feel like it? Put two to three former hits in a blender and try and create a new hit. This week’s latest mash-up (and we’ll have another much-more-obnoxious one in a few days) combines elements of “The Amazing Race” and “Survivor” into ABC’s “Expedition Impossible,” another mediocre summer offering.

Television Rating: 1.5/5.0

Mark Burnett has developed a reputation as a reality TV icon. He produced “Survivor,” “The Apprentice,” “The Contender,” “The Voice,” and many, many more. It’s almost impossible that you haven’t seen a show that he had something to do with. He’s become one of the most influential producers in all of television over the last few decades. He often knows exactly how to make the most ridiculous concepts work as escapist entertainment.

Expedition Impossible
Photo credit: ABC

Often, but not always. “Expedition Impossible” is a misfire for Burnett, a program that only serves to remind the viewer of other shows that traveled the same paths in more entertaining, accomplished ways. It takes guts, something Mark Burnett certainly doesn’t lack, to so directly tackle the program that has arguably stolen so much of his reality TV glory in “The Amazing Race.” “Expedition Impossible” so blatantly steals the “TAR” model with a variety of different partnerships traveling through different race legs to meet a host (Dave Salmoni) who will send the last-place team home to argue about who did what wrong.

Where “TAR” features teams of two, “Expedition Impossible” features teams of three but the unique trios are similar to the CBS hit in that they represent different segments of society. There are the former football stars, the two girls with their moms, even a team of gypsies and one with a blind guy. On paper, the cast of “EI” must have looked promising but they just don’t work as well on film. SO much of the success of a show like this comes down to casting and I just never cared about any of them on “Expedition Impossible.” It all reeks of desperation, people trying to being entertaining instead of being themselves. “Look, we’re tough New Yorkers!” “Yeah, well I’m blind!” “I LOVE my mom!” We don’t get to know any of these people and I’m not sure we want to.

Part of the problem is that the environment isn’t conducive to getting to know them. The biggest difference between Burnett’s show and TAR is that it seems like there will be no airports or lost cab drivers on this show. The contestants are trekking across Morocco, in open spaces where they will have to follow river beds or rappel off cliffs. It’s a far more nature-driven show but what someone never realized is that it’s not that fun to watch other people hiking. Part of the joy of “TAR” is watching people travel the world to cities you will never visit. Watching gypsies count snakes so they go off in the right direction? Not nearly as entertaining.

“Expedition Impossible” debuts on ABC on June 23rd, 2011 at 8pm CST.

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

Blu-Ray Review: ‘Expedition Africa’ Not Worth the Trip

BrianTT — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:30:12 -0400

CHICAGO – Mark Burnett is a man who knows no shame. The phenomenal success he’s found with shows such as “Survivor” and “The Apprentice” have cemented his reputation as the Jerry Bruckheimer of television. There isn’t a moment in any of his reality TV spectacles that feels spontaneous or authentic. And yet his shows are so popular with undiscerning viewers that they’ve basically become critic-proof. As eye candy they’re often delectable, but as brain food, they’re no more substantial than McDonald’s.

Blu-Ray Rating: 1.5/5.0

One of Burnett’s new shows this year was “Expedition Africa,” which premiered on The History Channel in May. It is undoubtedly his most transparent exercise in audience manipulation to date. The show features four explorers who embark on the same 970-mile journey through Africa taken by Henry Morton Stanley to find Dr. David Livingstone.

In other hands, this could’ve been a landmark show on par with PBS’ great House Series, detailing the rich histories of human exploration and African culture. But alas, there is no real history in this show. That’s because The History Channel, in its desperation for viewership, has become as shameless as Burnett in its witless attempts to maintain ADD attention spans while sacrificing the integrity of its material.

Expedition Africa will be released on Blu-Ray on October 27th, 2009.
Photo credit: A&E Home Video

No more than five minutes into the first episode, manufactured conflict rears its loathsome head. Survivalist Benedict Allen has barely met navigator Pasquale Scaturro, before he observes in voiceover that his fellow explorer, “doesn’t seem good at obeying orders!” This leads another explorer, wildlife expert Mireya Mayor, to cheerfully reply, “I think you guys are going to butt heads a lot!” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Pasquale and Benedict were cast to respectively represent the differing ideologies of Stanley and Livingstone.

Pasquale charges ahead of the group and declares, “an expedition is not a democracy,” while Benedict drinks in his surroundings and swoons, “Can you smell the history?” That’s not what I smell. Since these superficially opposed personalities are allowed to upstage the historical premise, the show basically amounts to a thirty day camping trip with the Bickersons.

Thus, the viewer is treated to an excess of talking heads and staged altercations. Occasionally, an image of the breathtaking African landscapes or an actual historical fact will emerge like the prize in a Cracker Jack box. Yet what makes the show truly laughable is its incessant need to remind the viewer that its human subjects are actually in peril. The explorers will encounter a deadly situation at every commercial break, only to have it evaporate when the show continues.

A typical example of this occurs in the first episode, when the group loses track of its fourth explorer, journalist Kevin Sites. The show then cuts to the lost journalist…talking into the camera! Sorry “Expedition Africa,” but you’re no “Blair Witch Project.” Do you really expect viewers to buy that these four explorers could get lost when they’re being followed by roughly 100 crew members?

The explorers are so intent on comparing themselves to Stanley that I kept hoping for Stanley to materialize like Marshall McLuhan in “Annie Hall,” and assure them that they know nothing of his work. There are very few occasions when threatening animals are glimpsed in the same shot as the explorers (they might as well be stock footage).

Perhaps the biggest howler of all occurs when Benedict conveniently falls ill of Malaria at the same location where Stanley’s partner fell ill and died (luckily, Benedict quickly recovers). Are we really supposed to believe that a so-called “renowned explorer” wouldn’t get immunized before going to Africa, or that a network would risk a major lawsuit by putting its talent’s lives at risk? “Death comes quickly here,” Benedict warns. Apparently not quickly enough.

The 2-disc Blu-Ray edition of “Expedition Africa” includes all 8 episodes in HD so vibrant your eyes may bleed, but not before your brain implodes. A 20-minute making-of documentary barley does justice to the show’s mammoth undertaking…and missed opportunity.

‘Expedition Africa’ is released by A&E Home Video and stars Benedict Allen, Mireya Mayor, Pasquale Scaturro and Kevin Sites. It was created by Mark Burnett. It was released on October 27th, 2009. It is not rated.

By MATT FAGERHOLM
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com