The Quest Brings Fantasy to Reality TV

[Philip Harris]

The Quest Brings Fantasy to Reality TV

Can ABC blend high fantasy drama with reality television? With The Quest, they're giving it their best try.

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[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Saw the pilot yesterday. I'm wary of any Reality TV show, but this one interests me in the same way that The Amazing Race did- more focus on skill based challenges and tests than who's the most popular/bitchy. More telling is how when the team was discussing which of the two failures to banish, their main focus was on who would be useful to the team's quest, not who would be their toughest competition even though in the end, 'there can be only one!'. The banished one took it well, hopefully that will continue since the voting is not anonymous.

Already a full-on cliche storm complete with a vizier, prophecy, and dark lord, it will stand or fall on the strength of the tests, I should think.

 

[StormShaun]

This also interests me.
Sure the above pointed out the cliches, but for a reality/fantasy hybrid, I'm still interested.
The only problem is ... well, I don't exactly live in America to view it. I'm also going to guess that it will not air in Australia. Unless someone has information if it is or not, I shall be sad until I can watch it on the internet.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

So they're basically videotaping larpers?

That's kind of wonderful.

I stepped away from reality TV a long time ago, but if I was still willing to subject myself to it, I might watch this.

 

[Scarim Coral]

So this is what laraping could be like if they had ALOT of budget and proper training (well from the look of it), neat I guess.

 

[CruxisCalling]

I thought it was really interesting, but I'm trying to resist getting overly invested in it as I feel it's not the kind of show that will stay on air for an extended period of time. It's aiming for a smaller, specifically targeted audience, and those types of shows don't stick around long in my experience. Just my opinion, though.

I look forward to seeing if the paladins start to resist doing as they're told. We saw at the very beginning that one of the extras got grabbed by some type of creature and dragged into the woods, and the paladins did as they were told and let him be taken, but several of them were clearly unhappy with the decision. I'd like to see if they eventually get into character enough that they say "screw it, I'm a hero, I'm going after him". The same thing with the decision to wait for Crio to return when they were imprisoned, rather than try to escape. I like to believe that choosing to save the guy or to escape imprisonment would have led to a different set of interactions and the story would have changed accordingly. Or maybe they'd land in a storage room with a bunch of spare cameras. Either way.

 

[Vault101]

doesn't look any different from any other american "reality" TV show

.....[i/]ba-dum-tsh[/i]

seriously this blurring of the lines certainly is something different...to say the least, ground breaking or gimmick? I wonder

 

[sageoftruth]

I was really skeptical until the part about how the contestants are all people who want to escape into this fantasy world. Now it sounds like the ultimate LARP. This could be fun to watch. My only question is, why did they stick with the whole voting off thing? What's the point of that? I hope they have a convincing way to explain that in the show without making it sound contrived.

 

[sageoftruth]

I thought it was really interesting, but I'm trying to resist getting overly invested in it as I feel it's not the kind of show that will stay on air for an extended period of time. It's aiming for a smaller, specifically targeted audience, and those types of shows don't stick around long in my experience. Just my opinion, though.

I look forward to seeing if the paladins start to resist doing as they're told. We saw at the very beginning that one of the extras got grabbed by some type of creature and dragged into the woods, and the paladins did as they were told and let him be taken, but several of them were clearly unhappy with the decision. I'd like to see if they eventually get into character enough that they say "screw it, I'm a hero, I'm going after him". The same thing with the decision to wait for Crio to return when they were imprisoned, rather than try to escape. I like to believe that choosing to save the guy or to escape imprisonment would have led to a different set of interactions and the story would have changed accordingly. Or maybe they'd land in a storage room with a bunch of spare cameras. Either way.

Good point. If this show is to be truly gripping, then the people in charge will need to be some really impressive DMs.

 

[And Man]

I've never been one for reality television (Survivor is the only one that I've ever watched), but this seems pretty interesting. I'll definitely have to check it out.

I look forward to seeing if the paladins start to resist doing as they're told. We saw at the very beginning that one of the extras got grabbed by some type of creature and dragged into the woods, and the paladins did as they were told and let him be taken, but several of them were clearly unhappy with the decision. I'd like to see if they eventually get into character enough that they say "screw it, I'm a hero, I'm going after him". The same thing with the decision to wait for Crio to return when they were imprisoned, rather than try to escape. I like to believe that choosing to save the guy or to escape imprisonment would have led to a different set of interactions and the story would have changed accordingly. Or maybe they'd land in a storage room with a bunch of spare cameras. Either way.

This makes me even more interested, and hopefully something like that will happen. I could really see some people, after being told to not help the extra being dragged into the woods, thinking "But we're Paladins, we're supposed to help him", or something along the lines of that.

 

[Eagi]

Sweden did this like a decade ago, wasn't good then. No high hopes for this either...

http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riket_%28SVT%29