What had to happen happened: after an unbearable gala (like all of the edition, without Telecinco considering that four hours are too many for a Thursday), the only contestant on ‘Secret Story’ who deserved it took the briefcase with the 150,000 euros. Rafa Martinez Alarcon, a plumber (we assume that he is already an ex-plumber) has based his contest on knowing how to use irony, getting into all the puddles, calling furniture furniture, falling in love with Carmen and continually saying taglines like “What a fabric” or “Fuck, man”. Rarely has there been in Spain Such a bona fide winner in such a pitiful reality show.
Why ‘Secret Story’ Hasn’t Worked
You don’t have to be a lynx to realize that Telecinco’s latest attempt to revive ‘Big Brother’ has not clicked with the audience. The final barely gathered 1,300,000 people around the TV, a 12.1% share. To give us an idea, the edition that ended the previous format had a 15% in its end after the flight of advertisers due to the rape of Carlota Prado and was considered a resounding failure. But if ‘Secret Story’ has been a painting, it has not been because of its cast, but because of a finished format and a team that has not wanted to risk.
Telecinco is experiencing a moment of change: what has worked all your life is no longer working, and their future will depend on how long they take to react. ‘Sálvame’ no longer captivates the audience, the network has lost first place in favor of Antena 3’s entertainment and its machine for making celebrities (literally, their next reality show will be called ‘I want to be famous’, for which they are doing a macro-casting on TikTok) is buggy. And Mediaset has not known how to deal with this situation trying to create something new and surprising. Instead, with ‘Secret Story’ has repeated what worked five years ago, but with less enthusiasm and letting the threads show.
The magician has taught that inside the hat there was a rabbit, and the audience has quickly become disenchanted: the favoritism of the edition by some contestants, denying Adrián’s blows to the furniture or Nissy’s disciplinary expulsion (who put on makeup as best they could), added to the absolute blandness of the tests and the extremely boring mechanics, to a 24-hour program that censors the key moments and endless finery have resulted in an experiment that it only serves to show that we are no longer the same public who we were a few years ago. And if you want us to eat ‘Big Brother’, you better give the matter a spin.
How to improve ‘Secret Story’
The attempt to revolutionize everything in ‘Secret Story’ was set up an alternate game that of coexistence: each contestant would enter with a secret and the rest would have to find out what it is. the idea was not badbut the rules were messy (and changing), the contestants, except Alvarito, paid no attention to the spheres, and in the end, when everyone knew everyone’s secrets, Marta received Rafa’s after a movement by the organization to give them to her for no reason.
It has been 22 years since the premiere of ‘Survivor’ and ‘Big Brother’, the American equivalents to ‘Survivors’ and ‘Big Brother’, which maintain the strength of yesteryear in part because they consider that the audience she may be interested in a reality show even though she has no decision-making power in the same. In these contests, the same participants throw each other out and the expelled decide who is the winner, which makes winning in strategies, nuances, surprises and backstabbing in galas that last 40 minutes. Someone take note.
As that promo for ‘Insiders’ said (better promo than program, everything is said), the contestants know them all. They are aware of what keys they have to press to please the public and that their future is not in their hands. But you have to face reality: we are a more savvy audience and difficult to surprise and nobody cares, at this point, if you have been natural or have enjoyed the experience. We want to see how you fare when it comes time to strategize, if you’re smart enough to wriggle, backstab and earn the respect of your peers doing it.
a finished format
When ‘Big Brother’ started, “live life” was something new. Now it’s that lemon at the bottom of your fridge that you’re embarrassed to get rid of because it’s almost part of your family. But, to change the format completely and face that we have “live life” every day thanks to Twitch or TikTok, Mediaset would have to choose another type of contestants, more similar to Rafa and less to Marta or Adrián and prepared for the word “strategist” to be said as a compliment rather than as an insult.
But this change will be worth nothing without a renewal in testing, both in its purpose and in its mechanics. Let’s go back, once again, to the American ‘Big Brother’, in which the funniest and fastest tests (normally they are done in ten or fifteen minutes instead of lasting a whole week), depend on important things, such as win immunity or get the nominees changed of the week. In this way, new synergies, unexpected groups, secret alliances and stronger friendships are created than focusing the week on calling a thousand telephone numbers so that they repeat the phrase “I kill for my daughter”, a test that, to top it off, was a homage to another from the past. boring.
Even if your contestants are the best in history (Rafa is one of them, without a doubt), if on a day-to-day basis all they have to do is fight over Nocilla while they watch the wall dry up talking about nothing, your program has nothing to do. The organization of ‘Secret Story’ has had to improvise week after week, this program has given privileges to some contestants that it has denied to others, it has protected those it has loved and has converted an already old format in 2022 in one that has only been kept standing by the charisma of two or three contestants. People who have seen ‘Secret Story’ have done so despite ‘Secret Story’.
Telecinco needs an urgent renovation of the format together with that of the entire chain, which intends to survive by staying on its feet thanks to the glories of the past. Rafa knew it perfectly, and that is why she has given exactly what could have made him win: something totally different from what the cold, bland, decadent and boring Mediaset grill offers. I just hope that Ramen enjoys the 150,000 euros properly, and the contestant ends up writing something that he really wants. He deserves it: A star has been born. The only one, next to Nissy, in this bottomless pit.