On Television

How do you make anything new on TV?

It probably should be hard to be the producer of Survivor. Every season it seems as though you have to come up with a new gimmick or two to keep viewers interested. You've done men versus women. You've done pick teams. You've done switch teams halfway through. You've brought back people who were eliminated already in a season. You've brought back people who were eliminated the previous season. You've done an All Star Season and split the players up into four teams for that. You've even done a season where one team was voted to near extinction. You've played with all sorts of gimmicks. Then you look over at the people at The Amazing Race - you know the show that's cleaned your clock three times at the Emmys - and you see that the one and only time they tried a gimmick, in the form of The Amazing Race: Family Edition not only did their ratings go down rather than up but they were roundly criticized by fans and professional TV critics who wanted the show to go back to the way it was.