The Genius (2013-2015): The best reality TV show ever made
The premise is like Survivor: don't get eliminated. The thirteen contestants vie for immunity and each week's loser gets axed. The games are mostly board game-style gambling -- from straightforward poker derivatives to deckbuilding.
The show is completely unscripted and the cast is a mixture of minor celebrities, professional game players, and -- in seasons three and four -- ordinary folks from the general public.
The show's marketing material describes the show as an investigation of what genius is. There's a case to be made for this -- the games are diverse, well-designed, and the gameplay onscreen is always interesting. You'll be constantly saying to yourself "I didn't think of that," even the second or third time you watch the show. There's often more than one way to win each game.
What the show does well is presenting mundane reality TV dilemmas psychologically. The show takes place in a kind of liminal space where it isn't clear who's going to become the monster and how. There's lighter stuff and camaderie -- on-camera shtick like hugging and bowing and begging, eating delicious food. Sometimes, there's a little bit of sexism.
It ends in something continually getting worse, and nobody's ever sure exactly what. It usually takes more than one episode for someone to pinpoint what it is. A lot of the tension comes from how the first time something strange happens, it's OK or you excuse it as a coincidence -- and the second or third time it happens, your fear of confirmation bias makes it so you're still not entirely sure if it's a pattern. The show spends a lot of time on this precipice.
The people on The Genius are abnormal. Some of them play the games weird and some are weird themselves -- some of them have learned to hide their biggest character flaws and some of them haven't. At the most extreme it's like sitting next to someone on the bus who snores loud, but not loud enough to make you give up your seat, and then he shoves his hand down your throat.
You can view the first season here, subtitled in English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpwIgWPfNvc . Most of the fans consider Episode 2 a very strong episode, so you should watch at least until that, or skip to it if you're impatient.
If all the psychodrama stuff I mentioned sounds appealing to you, skip to season 2, the darkest season. Unfortunately, the later seasons aren't on YouTube, but you can find them in a lot of places: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheGenius/comments/5s7eh9/the_genius_s2_s3_and_society_game_file_links/
I've been rabidly evangelizing this show to all my real life friends for years. Please ask any questions that will lead to you watching it! (PS: To those who've seen it, please don't post spoilers in this thread!)
If I'm interested but am not willing to jump in to a few hours of watching right away, are there any clips that you can share that would be representative of the show, that would convince me to watch?
Edit: So I watched episode one. Holy cow, I'm finishing this series. It's not easily clippable—there's so many layers of strategy the challenges, and it gets really cerebral. The show makes it easy, but it's deep.
Hey! Sorry for not getting back to you sooner.
I don't think the show excerpts very well. Some episodes have a self-contained arc, so if you're a person who doesn't mind spoilers of all previous episodes, S1E2, S1E8, S2E1, S2E6, S3E4 and S4E1 are imho among the strongest standalone eps in the series. The only IRL friend I've convinced to watch this flat-out said "you've been insisting S4 is the best tv ever, so let's just skip to that" -- so I introduced her with S2E1, then S3E4, then S4E1, and she watched all of S4 with me from there.
No worries, and I agree, there's no way to jump in without just watching a whole episode. I'm churning through S1 now, slowly. On to S1E5 next.
Cool! S1's opening series of rounds is so strong. (although I bet by now you're over halfway through.)
EDIT: Oh, you should probably know that the games in S1 are a little bit simple compared to the games in future seasons. They get some serious board game designers on their staff for S3 and it shows IMHO.
I just watched the first episode and loved it. Reminds me of an anime I watched a long time ago, called Kaiji. It's a thinking man's reality game show with cleverly designed challenges and above average production value. I love how the game is more about playing the other contestants than playing the game itself. Definitely going to finish it! Thanks for raising awareness for the show.
There's a whole lot of Kaiji in this show -- you'll recognize rigged chinchiro, an E-card relative, a few other familiar things. Maybe there's a little less despair!
I really enjoyed Murder In Small Town X, but it died after one season.