DAVID BIANCULLI

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RIOT
May 13, 2014  | By David Bianculli

Fox, 9:00 p.m. ET

 

SERIES PREMIERE: Not only is Steve Carell a contestant on this strange new comedy-based game show series – he’s also an executive producer. He’s imported this format, and revised it for American audiences, from the Australian series Slide Show, which itself is a format reboot of a similar idea from a French series, Vendredri Tout est Permis Avec Arthur (translated to On Fridays, Anything Goes with Arthur). In all versions, teams of celebrities compete in challenges and games, all of which are played out on a stage that, like the cameras filming it, are tilted 22 degrees. Riot might be fun to watch, but it’s nothing new. Ernie Kovacs did the same camera trick in the 1950s – as any student taking my TV History & Appreciation class at Rowan University already knows.

 
 
 
 
 
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