I’m looking for recommendations for reality competition shows that are based purely (or at least mostly) on skill. I love watching people who are passionate about something complete against each other. But I loathe manufactured drama.
Some of my favorites for context:
Forged in Fire - knifesmiths completing against each other and the clock. Think Chopped for blacksmiths.
Alone - Just people trying to survive on their own in the wilderness. No camera crews, no backstabbing, no tribal councils, no voting, just people versus the elements and their own minds.
The Great British Bake Off - my comfort watch. I love how everyone supports each other.
I also enjoyed A Cut Above and Blown. I tried to watch the Pottery one on HBO, but couldn’t get into it.
Ink master. Little to no drama. Just raw artistic skill. Very entertaining, even ifnyou arent into tattoos otherwise
Have you considered, um, sports?
Super brain, Chinese competitive game show where they do all sorts of mental competitions, some of the memory based ones are really impressive. There is some drama but they focus mostly on the actual competition.
Taskmaster, more of a comedy show but the show is a mostly unscripted competition between comedians trying to do different challenges that you could do at home pretty easily most of the time but have a time limit or rules to make it goofy or leave hidden clues nobody usually notices that make them easy to do
I like Culinary Class Wars.
Taskmaster isn’t technically skill-based, but does reward lateral thinking. Also, the filming takes place over the course of months and for most of it the contestants never even meet each other (occasionally 2-3 have to work together), so there’s no drama that way.
I love Taskmaster! It is a great rewatch show too. I notice.new things every time.
It’s not totally without drama, but The Devil’s Plan is a good example of winning via skills (even if some of those skills are interpersonal). It is celebrity based and it is edited to amp up some drama, but the actual competition is compelling.
You cannot recommend The Devil’s Plan without also at least mentioning the all-time goat, The Genius Game (the original Korean one).
I in fact did not know of The Genius Game, any idea where I can watch it in the US?
There’s no official way to watch it outside Korea and that might make it legally a bit tricky to direct you to the source, but the subtitle group is Baechu Squad. Your preferred search engine will know more. It may be a bit tedious to acquire the individual episodes (by today’s streaming standards) but I cannot stress enough how it really really REALLY is worth it. SO WORTH IT.
The genius game was sooo good. Glad some people appreciated it too. Also helps that I was a big fan of the first winner.
I was going to recommend this as well. As you say, relationships and interpersonal skills play a part in both seasons, but in my opinion it makes the competition better as the stakes are bigger for the contestants and it gives them something else to leverage in games they are weaker at.
I saw an interviewwith the first host of Forged In Fire were he revealed that the execs forced them to award the win to the Judge instead of the contestant in one of the early “Beat The Judges” competitions and that’s one of the reasons he left. I’m not saying that is rampant or anything, but ever since then it’s planted a kernel of doubt in my mind that kind of ruined the fairness, if that makes sense.
Show is still one of the better competitions out there and the smiths are absolutely amazing
Special effects makeup.
I haven’t watched it in a while, but I remember it being all about the results with very little drama.
Hosted originally by Mackenzie Westmore, daughter of the man who designed most of Trek’s most memorable aliens.
Cool user name.
If you like body painting, Skin Wars was neat.
I think I’ve seen it on streaming before. I’ll give it a go. Thanks
Iron Chef was great, both the OG Japanese and the Alton Brown one. He did another one where the contestants had to do ridiculous things during their cooking challenge, that was also great.
If you like Iron Chef and want something similar, but lower stakes, Gastronauts on Dropout is great. Different chefs and judges each episode, each judge creates a challenge for the chefs, and everyone has a ton of fun.
Clearly Jetlag the Game
I remember watching the first episode and I got kind of put off by the premise where they had different advantages and disadvantages given. It felt like it took away from the competition and made it more luck based. Maybe I’ll give it a couple more episodes. Thanks
Yeah there is for sure a strong luck element in it and it’s not exactly a fair competition. Also depends on the game mode. I like “hide and seek” best, but then every hider has a different starting point, but it’s interesting to see what they do with it.
The great Pottery throw down. There’s also a Canadian version.
The Australian, new Zealand, and Canadian versions of bake off are also great. Except season 1 of Australian, they added a real prize and it was terrible.
I knew about the US version of Bake Off, and heard it was bad. Didn’t know about the others. I’ll definitely check them out.
Side note, I watched Junior Bake Off my 10 year old daughter. We both ended up loving it. It wasn’t just geared towards kids. It was enjoyable as an adult too.
The Great British Bake Off - that’s full of drama, the sob stories of how its their grannies recipe and she would be overjoyed to see me win with it. Puts me right off, stick to the cakes and pies, we don’t need to know your life other than a few brief details.
The sewing bee has started it too, otherwise that was pretty decent the earlier series. I have also noticed on these shows its becoming more and more about the docile supposedly comical presenters.
I am watching the suggestions added as I also like this skill based shows…just not the drama or the silly humor, nor product placements. I do like ones that explain the processes.
Threre was a BBC pottery one a few years ago but it didn’t get past a series or 2, it was quite chill, i likes how they brought a guest craftsperson/s on to demo paint techniques etc.
Lego Masters was pretty decent too.
I didn’t enjoy Lego Masters simply because of the host. I love Will Arnett, but he treated the whole thing like it was a joke and like he didn’t want to be there. I don’t know who told him to act like Lego was just a dumb, childish hobby, but it was insulting to the people working hard to make such amazing builds.
Oh i watched the aus one
I didn’t like the later seasons of Alone Australia, the top scorers were basically starving themselves, rather than actually attempting to survive. The risk/reward really doesn’t favour spending the energy to hunt.
And there is a huge luck element when it comes to hunting and fishing.
But I agree that the manufactured drama being absent is a huge plus.
