LA Stories: America falls in love with Japanese game shows
You can't move in LA these days without running into the tidal-wave of British actors, directors, presenters and producers who now dominate the local TV industry. But could our days as the pre-eminent migrant nation of American telly be numbered?
Some trusty Brit imports - American Idol, Kitchen Nightmares, America's Got Talent, and the like - are now feeling distinctly long in the tooth, and producers have been reduced to messing around with formats (this week, for example, they appointed an extra judge on American Idol) in an effort to shore-up ratings.
Meanwhile, that dark horse of trash television, Japan, is suddenly notching-up some big hits in the US ratings charts. America's most watched prime-time shows this summer included two new Japanese imports: Wipeout, a giant game of human pinball reminiscent of It's a Knockout, and I Survived a Japanese Gameshow (a self-explanatory documentary).
Now Fox is getting in on the act. On 11 September (nice timing!) it will premiere Hole in the Wall, a game show in which strangely-attired contestants contort themselves into strange shapes in order to pass through an advancing papier-mache wall. If they fail, they end up in a swimming pool.
Judging by the preview clip below, the whole thing is simple, effective, and rather brilliant. Have our Japanese rivals just created the most watchable light entertainment programme on American TV? I think they just might have...
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