I've watched all three seasons of the original show on Nickelodeon and was psyched to hear about this reboot for adults on the CW. It's got some of the elements of the original show and I'll still watch it for the sake of nostalgia, but the editing for the program is absolutely cringe.
Positives:
- They got the same voice actor to voice Olmec
- It has the familiar progression of going across the moat, the steps of knowledge, the temple games, and then the temple run
- They added comic book-style graphics to explain the story
- $25,000 cash prize is sweet
- I liked the first-person camera bits; I think they could have made it easier to view the entire temple from the side though
- I didn't mind that they cut the number of teams from six to four; I also didn't mind that they turned the third temple game into a steps of knowledge tiebreaker to save time, although having a more physical, head-to-head tiebreaker would have been more exciting
Negatives:
- The lethargic music sucks a lot of energy out of the reboot. The whole point of this show is to the ride on our nostalgia, so it would have been far better if they could have remixed the classic tunes -- especially the temple run music -- and added them in.
- Because of COVID restrictions, there's no live audience. Not really their fault, but it just contributes to the lack of energy.
- There are far too many edit inserts of commentary from the host and the contestants. I want to watch the challenges from start to finish. If you want to splice in what the contestants are thinking, do it after they're over. The constant edits just make it feel like it's not live, which is one of the strengths of the original show.
- Worst of all, they cut the temple run IN HALF with a commercial break, destroying the momentum and intensity of the most important part of the show. I would rather watch longer commercials before the temple run than break it up like that. Just WHY?!
- The temple is actually sort of small. Since it only has about ten rooms or so, it's clear that there's really just one path through the temple where the contestants have to hit every room to get to the treasure. (Which means they will likely hit all three temple guards.) At least on the original show there was the illusion that you could go in multiple directions and there were times were shortcut doors did exist.
- By default, the final contestants are given two pendants of life, so the temple guards are not really that much of a threat, just more of a nuisance. One of the dangers of the temple games in the original was that if you only had 1 or 1.5 pendants of life at the end, you could be unlucky with the temple guard placement (tho you could the find the missing half pendant in the temple itself). I suppose that they wanted to make sure that the contestants always had a shot at the prize money, but it defeats the point of the guards.
