Over the past two decades, reality shows have been a constant presence in TV schedules. Cheap and quick to produce, it didn’t take long for us to have seen it all: a litany of dating shows, a slew of survival competitions. There is little that hasn’t been already done. So producers are increasingly turning to a new trick to stop the genre from becoming repetitive: size. Or at least taking a would-be ordinary show and packing 100 contestants into the format.
This month’s Netflix dance competition, Dance 100, sees 100 of the world’s best dancers performing routines that are choreographed by eight contestants. In a twist, it’s down to those 100 dancers to decide who stays in the competition and who gets eliminated. The sheer scale of the operation leads to high stakes TV, with the choreographers struggling as they have to translate their routines into ever-bigger performances as their group swells in size, from 25, to 50 to the titular 100. The dynamic of dealing with the giant cast seems to lend itself to tensions as entertaining as the routines. Multiple clashes unfold, as mob mentality from the judging horde at times turns a dance contest into a popularity contest. The silly number of dancers involved turns what could easily have been a forgettable show into something more.
The same can be said of the Korean reality TV show Physical: 100 (no relation). It was released in January and was a huge global success, creating internet celebrities from the 100 contestants that toughed it out in a series of gruelling challenges to win a cash prize of $230,000. Physical: 100 was a Netflix standout; watching so many contestants at a time drop like flies during the torturous physical feats gave it a blockbuster feel akin to The Hunger Games. A similar approach elevates Netflix’s 100 Humans. In this show, 100 participants from across the US engage in quirky experiments to test different theories about the human experience. Part of the joy comes from the diversity of the participants – a truly varied cross-section of the US population is showcased.
These programmes suggest some truth to the old adage “bigger is better”. Physical: 100 starting out with so many competitors saves it from just being Survivor on steroids (literally; allegations of steroid use have followed some contestants since it aired). Dance 100, with its 100 judges, made the process far more intense, as choreographers were surrounded by a sea of Simon Cowells praising or panning their routines. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the extravagance of both. The number of contestants in 100 Humans completely makes the show: were the sample size smaller, little would distinguish it from any pseudo scientific TV show aired on Channel 4 at 9pm.
Bigger casts however, seem to mean bigger problems. An NBC show called Million Dollar Island was in production this year and would have seen 100 contestants surviving on a deserted island for up to 60 days. The winners were due to receive a share of a $1m prize, had it not been cancelled – partly due to the show’s large budget. An Australian version hosted by Ant Middleton has also been filming this year but was postponed after hazardous asbestos material was discovered on location in Malaysia. The delay is thought to be costly, considering each episode had a $700,000 budget.
There’s another potential downside to size, too. What you gain in spectacle you lose in detail. Reality TV has always fixated on particular standout cast members, but the inability to flesh out stories is even more apparent with casts this large. The arcs of some interesting characters in Physical: 100 felt like they fell through the cracks and similarly in Dance 100, most of the dancers are relegated to zingy one-liners. Still, with viewers that are increasingly hard to shock and engage, huge casts are one way of retaining reality show viewers – for now.
