The Summit

The show summit is somewhat irritating to watch. Because some of the people on the show are so out of shape and that contestants vote off the strong means the week are never gonna make it to the summit. And then when they have a choice to vote off the week, the strongest are voted off and the week slow the rest of the contestants down. How dumb is that? Yeah, the people are letting their emotions overshadow the strategy of the goal of the game which is getting to the summit, but they are not going to get there when they keep voting off strong people. And then the host doesn't really let the contestants vote. He basically picks 2 people and then they vote on the two people he picks.

It's unbelievable that the producers could ruin this program. It had everything: physical challenges, competitions, beautiful scenery, eliminations, deceit, loads of cash, strong athletes, everything. And yet, ruin it they did. The last episodes were unwatchable for the boredom and can be fast forwarded through the weeping from letters from home, the weeping from zoom chats (do they really need zoom chats at the top of a mountain?) and the repetition of the previous scenesafter the commercials. Honestly, this program became so disappointing after the initial episodes draw you in. It's as if they wanted to incorporate every reality series ever done and failed miserably in the doing.

This show is clearly run by producers expecting the contestants to overcompensate the reality and bring out the Hollywood. The hour long show (42 min) could be chopped in half and not lose a step. Too damn drawn out. No thumbs up, CBS.

The are choosing players that have such limited skills, too! As much as CBS tried making this like Survivor, they failed. Why is it so hard to make a reality show REAL? It's interesting that the same lack of tactics plays out on this show as well. Men vs. Women, color vs. Caucasian, strong vs. Week, straight vs. Gay, etc. Why can't it be human vs. Human? Because, once again, producers are involved!

So the object is to try to eliminate those with strong hiking skills so lesser people can get to top of mountain and win lots of money. This was not the premise that the producers provided the audience; i.e., get to top of mountain. The Selection of people who had no idea how difficult it is to summit any substantial mountain, much less an New Zealand high summit is an insult to the audience. One can only surmise that whoever thought this would be an interesting show totally missed the boat; mostly because people who are overweight, unskilled in hiking should not have been selected to climb a really big mountain.

It's such a shame that this show format has great potential, but is woefully let down by the so called host who adds nothing, and just comes across as a smug half wit. Also the challenges faced by the competitors could be much more diverse and enhance interest by incorporating basic survival tasks like shelter building, fire making and at the very least cooking food, rather than arriving to a ridiculous banquet of meals and booze. It doesn't have to rival or copy Survivor and Alone, but surely it would benefit by being more authentic and interesting by exploring some other elements of traversing this amazing environment.