1 review
PSR: Primitive Slacker Rating.
Primitive Slacking Rating, more like. Considering that those who work the least achieve the most "success".
One of the dumbest aspects of the show (and as you can see, there are so many) is the ridiculous, totally subjective "expert rating" that every guinea-pig is assigned before and after each "challenge". Essentially, the show's producers draw numbers out of their asses, because how the hell are they supposed to assess these absurd PSRs when most of what they "know" about the volunteer's experience is what the volunteer TELLS them? Each volunteer obviously tries to exaggerate their survival know-how just to beat out the other hundreds of candidates who are just dying to be on the show, because they're so bloody eager to be exhibitionist clods.
Even dumber than the initial PSR is the adjusted PSR after the "challenge". The logic is often sorely lacking. Just because a person catches a virus (through sheer bad luck) and is forced to quit somehow justifies their PSR tumbling down. In other words, it serves as much as a LUCK RATING as anything else.
The post-challenge PSR often punishes those who work hard - while rewarding slackers who let their partners do all or most of the work. Because "conserving energy" seems to be the (unintentional) mantra of this show far more than displaying actual survival skills.
Nor does the idiotic PSR rating ever take into account that some environments are harsher than others. For example, the Botswana episode (season 3) had both nudists "tap out", simply because there was no water source. By comparison, in some other regions both exhibitionists made it through the 3 weeks, having had a water source and less extreme weather conditions - two crucial factors.
PSR is basically one of those apples-and-oranges things. Utter nonsense, highly subjective, completely unfair - hence nonsensical. Made even worse by the fact that the PSRs are announced by that pompous, overly dramatic narrator.
BSR - BS Rating
Instead of the usual PSR nonsense, I'd like the narrator to give the show itself a BS rating for each episode.
Sort of like this:
"In this episode we used editing to trick the viewer into thinking there were 5 more situations of danger from wild animals than there really were, and we exaggerated that situation with the lion by making it appear as if he was meters away from the shelter, when in fact he was in a different country - and in a different time as a matter of fact. Our crew made weird lion noises to scare the morons, which we anyway do just for kicks. We yet again manipulated events in such a way as to make the female look strong and independent, because we're so politically-correct and do-gooderish, and we failed to mention the huge hotel breakfast that we served to both contestants on day 11. Obviously, we gave the woman twice as much food as the man - and we made him promise not to divulge this fact to the press or on the internet otherwise we'd never invite him for NAA XL. So this week's BSR is 8.9. Quite low by our standards because we usually inject even more fiction into an episode than that."
One of the dumbest aspects of the show (and as you can see, there are so many) is the ridiculous, totally subjective "expert rating" that every guinea-pig is assigned before and after each "challenge". Essentially, the show's producers draw numbers out of their asses, because how the hell are they supposed to assess these absurd PSRs when most of what they "know" about the volunteer's experience is what the volunteer TELLS them? Each volunteer obviously tries to exaggerate their survival know-how just to beat out the other hundreds of candidates who are just dying to be on the show, because they're so bloody eager to be exhibitionist clods.
Even dumber than the initial PSR is the adjusted PSR after the "challenge". The logic is often sorely lacking. Just because a person catches a virus (through sheer bad luck) and is forced to quit somehow justifies their PSR tumbling down. In other words, it serves as much as a LUCK RATING as anything else.
The post-challenge PSR often punishes those who work hard - while rewarding slackers who let their partners do all or most of the work. Because "conserving energy" seems to be the (unintentional) mantra of this show far more than displaying actual survival skills.
Nor does the idiotic PSR rating ever take into account that some environments are harsher than others. For example, the Botswana episode (season 3) had both nudists "tap out", simply because there was no water source. By comparison, in some other regions both exhibitionists made it through the 3 weeks, having had a water source and less extreme weather conditions - two crucial factors.
PSR is basically one of those apples-and-oranges things. Utter nonsense, highly subjective, completely unfair - hence nonsensical. Made even worse by the fact that the PSRs are announced by that pompous, overly dramatic narrator.
BSR - BS Rating
Instead of the usual PSR nonsense, I'd like the narrator to give the show itself a BS rating for each episode.
Sort of like this:
"In this episode we used editing to trick the viewer into thinking there were 5 more situations of danger from wild animals than there really were, and we exaggerated that situation with the lion by making it appear as if he was meters away from the shelter, when in fact he was in a different country - and in a different time as a matter of fact. Our crew made weird lion noises to scare the morons, which we anyway do just for kicks. We yet again manipulated events in such a way as to make the female look strong and independent, because we're so politically-correct and do-gooderish, and we failed to mention the huge hotel breakfast that we served to both contestants on day 11. Obviously, we gave the woman twice as much food as the man - and we made him promise not to divulge this fact to the press or on the internet otherwise we'd never invite him for NAA XL. So this week's BSR is 8.9. Quite low by our standards because we usually inject even more fiction into an episode than that."