Review of Series 7: The Contenders

Introduction

Love them or loathe them, "reality TV" shows are here to stay for now. No matter where you go in the world at the moment, you`ll find them. Even if you fly all the way down to Australia, you`ll still find local versions of Survivor, The Mole and Big Brother. There`s no escape unless you switch off your TV.

Over here in the UK, Big Brother is just about to hit our screens for the third time (with new "live" challenges to entertain us) and saturation coverage on E4, and the second series of Survivor is in full swing despite poor viewing figures for the first.

Series 7 : The Contenders brings us the entire series of this "popular reality TV show" chopped down into the end of series highlights programme, and slickly edited to bring us the introduction, all the juicy bits in the middle and the ending. The plot is briefly outlined above and I won`t go into more detail as you pick up all the detail you need when watching.

You probably won`t recognise most of the main participants, and this definitely works to the film`s advantage. Brooke Smith played Catherine Martin in Silence of the Lambs, but that`s probably the biggest claim to fame amongst the cast.

Video

We get a 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer which looks great since the film was shot on digital video. It has the perfect TV show look, right down to all the little details like graphics, confessing to the cameras and also a lot of footage from wobbly hand held cameras. It certainly looks realistic enough to fool a few people into believing that it`s real. The fact that it was shot in about a week probably helps too.

Audio

A very good DD5.1 soundtrack, which elevates the audio above that of the average TV programme but which still has some TV qualities to it, thanks largely to the cheese-stuffed voice of the voiceover man (and his poor quality puns), and some other very clever little details.

It`s not one to give your system a good workout, but it`s very fitting and combines well with the visuals to give a good all round audio/visual experience.

Features

Unlike the lifeless rental disc, we get a nice little selection of extras.

Let`s start with the director`s commentary track - this is very interesting and crammed full with details on how they went about this film. Minahan even talks about bits of film that they didn`t actually film themselves. Well worth a listen if you enjoyed watching the film.

We also have very brief interviews with director Daniel Minahan and actress Brooke Smith, but they don`t get long enough on screen to say anything meaningful. There`s also the trailer, an "extreme promotions" section (not very extreme though), and a selection of deleted scenes (not called that on the menu though).

Conclusion

A fantastic satire of tabloid TV, none of these characters would be out of place on one of the many reality shows, and they`d be equally at home getting bleeped on Jerry Springer. If you`ve ever watched a reality show then you`ll probably be impressed by this film as it really is spot on. If you avoid the reality genre there`s still plenty here for you, and the film will probably make you even happier that you`ve not immersed yourself in the murky depths of reality TV.

Series 7 might just be a glimpse of the programmes we can expect if we continue down this reality TV spiral. Instead of all living nicely in a house and turning into D list celebs, the contestants in Series 7 have only one way to win the game - kill all the other contestants. You don`t get voted off, you get bumped off. I`m sure there are people out there who would find this much more interesting than watching Big Brother.

An excellent film, well worth watching before it becomes reality.