Fixing Capture

Other than America's Next Top Model, The CW is not really known for its reality competitions, and in all honestly, Capture probably won't change that. The show, which premiered last night, certainly takes itself seriously enough, but since its trappings don't really disguise the fact that there's basically nothing to it, you...probably won't. But is there any way the show could turn compelling? Here are the tweaks the show should make if it's lucky enough to make it to a second season.

Make it more like The Hunger Games: every player for him/herself

The extremely obvious model for Capture is The Hunger Games, a young-adult novel set in a dystopic future America in which, every year, pairs of teenagers from each district are sent to compete in a fight to the death, in which the sole survivor's district is rewarded for his or her success with a year's worth of food aid. Obviously, Capture would be a more compelling show if it were a real fight to the death -- surely no one would bother trying to argue otherwise -- but our society hasn't quite crumbled to the point where we're ready to see people die on TV for our entertainment. But since Capture has borrowed so many elements from The Hunger Games, from the look of the starting platform to the contestants' costumes to the woodsy setting to the surveillance apparatus, was the decision made that the contestants should work in teams solely because otherwise it would be a non-lethal carbon copy of The Hunger Games? Because I can't think of any other reason. From what we could tell from the premiere, all it takes is for one Hunter to catch one Prey, and the Hunt team has succeeded in its project. So what is this team BS?

Make it less like a giant game of Tag

Okay, so if you didn't watch the premiere...Capture is a giant game of Tag, which all the Hunger Games touches are clearly trying to distract you from. In each episode, one pair of contestants is the Hunt team (a.k.a. "It"), and the rest of them get a head start to evade Capture (a.k.a. "getting tagged"). The only difference is that instead of the tagged player or team becoming It in the usual Tag fashion, the Hunt team has two days to capture two teams. If the Hunt team is successful, those two captured teams will be up for elimination; if they only get one team, then the Hunt team will be eligible for elimination, and if they get none, the Hunt team will be eliminated automatically. But otherwise it's the same: for all the business about the Prey having to keep moving so that their location doesn't pop up on the Hunt team's wrist-mounted GPS (which it will if they stay in the same spot for more than three minutes) and the showiness of the Talon marker lighting up the Prey's vest to indicate that they're out, success or failure in the game still comes down to It getting close enough to tag you out, or you running fast enough to evade getting tagged. What if the Hunt team had some kind of non-lethal implement by which its members could Capture Prey from a distance? It would still require speed, but it would also introduce a skill element that would make the whole enterprise look less like kids running around at recess.

Do something with the prison

When a team gets captured, the Hunt is over for the day, and the Captured team's members are brought back to "the village" (home base) and locked up in prison -- a little pen surrounded by what appear to be PVC bars, minus a roof so that, I guess, if the weather is inclement, as it was last night, the prisoners have no protection from the elements (though the free players don't seem to have much cover over their open bunks, either, beyond a tarp that I think the prisoners also got). If they get captured on the first day of the hunt, as the yellow team did, then they have to spend the second day just sitting there, bitching at each other about what went wrong, I guess. Or napping. But that whole time, no one's even around, from what we could see. Here's how to make this aspect of the game somewhat interesting. 1. Don't end The Hunt when the first team is Captured. 2. If the Captured team breaks out of prison, they're back in the mix. Stick a few seemingly innocuous implements into the cell and see what they can MacGyver out of them. So what could happen is, when everyone else is out on the Hunt, the Captured team busts out and an alert goes out to all the other teams. If the Captured team seems particularly ingenious, the Hunt team could just loiter around and nab them as soon as they bust out. Or, if the Hunt team has already caught their second team and think they're in the clear, then leading the second Captured team back to prison and getting this alert gives a lot more urgency to the moment.

Build a better rising platform for the Talons during voting

I always like a non-anonymous vote, so well done on that, Capture. But the platform that presented each voting team with its dumb light-up Talon thing looked like it was being hand-cranked by a Teamster -- which it probably was, but come on. The sunglasses nook in my car slides open more smoothly than that.

Lose the AusZealglish host

Lesser reality shows have tried to steal his glow by casting hosts from Britain and/or Australia and/or New Zealand, but there's only one Phil Keoghan and the viewer will accept no substitutes. (This reality-TV trope has become so prevalent that even the scripted, intentionally fake reality show Siberia found one.) You know who'd do a better job and instantly make this show into appointment TV? THE ROCK. And I have a feeling The Hero won't need him for another season.