By Lawrence Yee
The hardest challenge in reality TV isn’t eating cockroaches or dodging catapulted watermelons — it’s keeping the final results under wraps.
Competition shows like “Survivor,” “The Amazing Race,” and “America’s Next Top Model” rely on viewers coming back week after week to see whether a favorite contestant falters or an underdog steps up. The shows culminate in season finales that draw millions of viewers (and advertising dollars).
Because these shows need to be edited, there is always a delay between taping and airing. For example, the latest season of “Survivor,” premiering tomorrow night, was filmed in June and July.
After contestants are voted off, they are sequestered in hotels for the remainder of the show’s taping. If they returned home immediately after being eliminated, their friends and families would be able to deduce where they placed in the competition. Even after taping ends, the contestants are contractually bound not to discuss the results. Despite these safeguards, the final “Survivor” tribal council is always broadcast live to ensure no one knows who the winner is.
It’s not only the contestants who have to keep mum. Every crew member must sign a nondisclosure agreement. However, that doesn’t prevent a keen-eyed tourist or a loose-tongued hotel employee from leaking details online. And it’s the die-hard fans that eat these details up.
Take last season of “The Amazing Race,” which kicked off at Los Angeles International Airport. Travelers with camera phones snapped photos of the contestants (easily spotted, since they had camera crews following them) and posted them online. Within hours, the entire cast had been identified on Reality Fan Forum — well before CBS officially released the names of the cast members.
“America’s Next Top Model” learned that lesson the hard way two years ago, when Dutch television aired footage of the winner and runner-up during their overseas trip to Holland, before the show even began airing in the United States! Last season, when the finalists traveled to New Zealand, the models were covered with big sunglasses and headscarves to protect their identities. Models that were previously eliminated on the show were also sent along with the top six to further throw off the scent.
Perhaps the one reality-TV competition that goes to the greatest lengths not to spoil the winner is “Project Runway.” The show, whose goal is to find the next great fashion designer, has a unique — and very difficult-to-keep-under-wraps — last challenge: The top three designers’ final task is to create and present a fashion collection at New York Fashion Week.
The problem? Fashion Week is one of the most heavily covered press events of the year. So how do the “Project Runway” producers prevent the public from finding out the identities of the top 3, when there are 10 contestants still remaining on the currently airing TV show?
The solution is to have all 10 designers present collections: 7 being decoys and 3 vying for the prize. No one, aside from the judges and the contestants themselves, know who the top 3 are, but that doesn’t stop fans from trying to find out.
Some fans pour over the published photos from the Fashion Week show, analyzing fabrics (the finalists have larger budgets than the decoys, so their materials should look more luxurious), model lineups (the finalists get first pick of the runway models, so theirs should be taller and have a more uniform height), and even the designer’s reaction (finalists should be smiling more, while the already-eliminated decoys are more morose).
But despite all their detective work, fans (and even those who were in attendance) can’t agree one way or another on who the final 3 are, meaning the “Project Runway” producers have successfully duped everyone. Now everyone has to tune in to the finale, which is exactly what the producers want.
Watch this ‘Survivor’ preview clip of an event that goes way wrong!
