It's cheesy, it's slightly silly. It definitely takes its source material from Fear Factor but is far more chaotic.
And for me that's where the problem lies. It's the chaos....it's almost impossible to follow what's going on properly because the camera is swooping around or sand is falling from the ceiling or something else is blocking the scene.
On the other hand there's some serious quite disturbing moments where you do wonder just how panicked people actually are and it stops being a game. There's the shrinking room scenario (shades of so many horror films) where the ceiling ends up so low it's worrying.
My favourite was the 'glue' floor, knee deep glue and the poor woman stuck in it and her plaintiff 'I can't move' will stay with me.
I actually liked Steve Valentine....his profound amusement at tormenting the contestants is brilliant. He's the sophisticated version of TJ Lavin.
Must add though...I do hope someone paid the clean up crew and the animal wranglers the big bucks because it must have been hell to sort out the sets afterwards.
Overall it's a good fun watch...it's definitely different but for me the chaos robs it of that indefinable something that makes it a great show.
And for me that's where the problem lies. It's the chaos....it's almost impossible to follow what's going on properly because the camera is swooping around or sand is falling from the ceiling or something else is blocking the scene.
On the other hand there's some serious quite disturbing moments where you do wonder just how panicked people actually are and it stops being a game. There's the shrinking room scenario (shades of so many horror films) where the ceiling ends up so low it's worrying.
My favourite was the 'glue' floor, knee deep glue and the poor woman stuck in it and her plaintiff 'I can't move' will stay with me.
I actually liked Steve Valentine....his profound amusement at tormenting the contestants is brilliant. He's the sophisticated version of TJ Lavin.
Must add though...I do hope someone paid the clean up crew and the animal wranglers the big bucks because it must have been hell to sort out the sets afterwards.
Overall it's a good fun watch...it's definitely different but for me the chaos robs it of that indefinable something that makes it a great show.